


Bury Me in Burgundy

by Labor_of_Love



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Timelines Mentioned, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Otto is there, Axel can't flirt, Domestic Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Oscar is R-Rated Sexy, Period-Typical Racism, Polyamory, Slow Burn, now with smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:55:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26807731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Labor_of_Love/pseuds/Labor_of_Love
Summary: When most people dream of what to do with their retirement, they probably don't imagine raising half a dozen cats and playing housekeeper to time-traveling assassins. Then again, not everyone retires from the Temps Commission.
Relationships: Axel (Umbrella Academy)/Original Female Character(s), Oscar (Umbrella Academy)/Original Female Character(s), Otto (Umbrella Academy)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 92





	1. Chapter 1

It was a Tuesday like any other, sat on the armchair as I trudged through reading the brick that was _War and Peace_. Occasionally a cat would jump onto my lap and make itself at home, forcing me to readjust my posture. The smell of coffee filled the house, a habit I had yet to break. Should I really be drinking close to five cups a day? Probably not, but it was one of the pleasures I allowed myself after finally perfecting a series of blends that satisfied my taste.

A knock on the door startled the cats, the one on my lap jumping off to investigate, effectively kicking me in the stomach. I removed the flock that had made it's way to the door and placed them back into the living room as I checked my hair in the small hallway mirror to smooth down any flyaways. I opened the door and unintentionally quirked an eyebrow up at the sight in front of me. The three men with platinum blonde hair stood shoulder to shoulder on my stoop, all dressed in dated and patchwork clothing that was more than unfit for the mild Dallas weather. Two of them had large bags hitched on their backs, while the one to my right held an all too familiar style of briefcase.

Unsurprisingly, they were silent and simply stared at me as my mind raced to figure out why the trio would be on my doorstep.

"Good morning, are you here about the spare room?" I tried to deduce, but they all simply continued to stand politely and expectantly. Their eyes flickered down to the two cats that pawed at my feet before looking back up. The one on the left tilted their head to the side as I bent down and picked up one cat in each arm.

"Please, come in. I just put on a pot of coffee." I gestured my head toward the inside of the house and hurried myself with grabbing the extra mugs from the cabinet, figuring they wouldn't mind that they were all mismatched.

As the three of them entered and began to settle themselves, looking around the room with vague interest my confidence grew that they were not here to kill me. If they were, I would have been done for as soon as I turned my back...

Why _were_ they sent here, though? Under what circumstances would the Commission choose to send the trio to my abode and not a hotel? For the short time that I had lived in the house, I hadn't had many tenants at all that were comfortable with the short term weekly rent or the overabundance of cats. Usually it was people down on their luck, or immigrants who were having difficulty with housing, but hosting agents had always been a possibility.

_Are they here for an extended mission? An atypical assignment that required more discretion?_ My mind raced with the potential possibilities, the probabilities and math theory that would lead to the brothers ending up in the secluded suburb. It didn't much matter, whatever the Commission needed of me, I would do in stride.

It would have been nice if I had advanced notice, though.

"Let me see if I remember..." I said as I carried over the mugs and the coffee to the living room. "Otto, Oscar..." I recounted, placing each mug in front of the respective brother. "and Axel."

I looked up to them smiling, but their eyes had gone dark, a thin line forming on all their lips as they exchanged a look with each other.

"How do you know our names?" Axel spoke with his thick accent, leaning forward on the edge of the couch.

"Did..." I floundered to find my words under his intimidating stare. "How did you know to come here?"

"Newspaper." He said, pulling a folded up page of yesterday's paper from his jacket, handing it over to me.

This was _not_ a probability that I had considered.

"They aren't setting up accommodations for the agents anymore?" I mused, mostly to myself while re-reading my own ad which had been circled in ink among the rest. "Well that's just criminal." I watched from the corner of my eye Oscar reaching for his bag under the table, prompting me to take a small step back with opened palms.

"Calm down, I used to be your case manager." I said, in a tone akin to a mother scolding her young children. Otto and Oscar looked at each other with confusion, while Axel scowl grew a little deeper. "The person that would send you all your assignments? Through the tubes? I retired a few months ago."

The Swedes hadn't been the only agents that I had been assigned to, but they certainly were the most memorable. Their initial assignment to me was meant as a punishment, a slap on the wrist for not working through cases quick enough to meet quota. With every kill an agent committed that was not a target, paperwork had to be done. Reports had to be drawn up, body removal services arranged, cross examination reports with other cases needed to be written... and boy did they cause me a bunch of headaches.

Rarely did our two departments ever interact beyond the regulated instructions, but after dealing with so much of their paperwork I had demanded to know what these trigger-happy nut cases looked like so I could put a face on my frustration. I still remembered the first time I saw their employee photos, taken aback by their striking features and couldn't have imagined them to be as handsome as they were.

"So unless you're here to kill me, I guess this is just a happy coincidence."

It still didn't prepare me for how much more handsome they were in person.

" _Pratar du Svenska?_ " Axel asked.

" _Nej_." I responded with my limited vocabulary, and turned back to the kitchen to grab creamer and sugar. "I only know what I translated for your messages. _Döda, skydda, vanta_... you get the idea."

I closely watched their body language with each movement I made, seeing the wheels begin to turn in their minds. The brothers had thought nothing of it, but their messages from the Commission had recently only been in English... and the recipient line had reverted back to simply _The Swedes_ , instead of their individual names.

"What was the message in Palanga?" Otto questioned, his voice softer than I would have expected. The other two seemed surprised by their brother speaking up.

"Lithuania, huh?" I leaned back against the counter and tugged at the chain of my necklace. "Well I don't remember the target. Was that the time I wrote _good luck, boys_ and drew a little heart?" I questioned, drawing a heart in the air with my pointer finger.

Otto's faced reddened a bit at the memory, after reading that particular message he asked his brothers if they thought that the person sending them the messages was a pretty girl. Oscar at the time had taunted him and said with their luck it was more likely an elderly woman. Based on their reaction I could tell that's exactly what they were referring to, and chuckled fondly.

"I got in a lot of trouble for that. Had to take a training for inappropriate conduct."

At that point, whooshing could be heard from two distinct points in the house. I reached out to the kitchen cabinet beside my head while Axel opened up the wall next to him, a faint glow of light around the newly formed square. We watched each other with curiosity as we opened our respective tubes.

_**To:** Primrose _ _**From:** H587421  
  
_ _Severance payment delayed. Full payment amount to be issued following completion of The Swedes' mission._

I held the paper in my hand and sealed the empty canister, placing it back in the transport tube and closing the door. I tucked it into my pocket with an annoyed sigh and brought the cream and sugar back to the table as Axel sent their empty container back through the tube. Otto and Oscar were reading it over his shoulder, eyes glancing from their message to me.

Axel scowled and in turn placed their message down, rotating it so I could read it. Attached to the order was my old employee photo in a sepia tone, hair in a standard updo and sporting the Peter Pan collar uniform.

_**To:** The Swedes _ _**From:** C893467A_   
_  
Under Article 52 Subsection II: Protect Primrose as subsidiary assignment_

The sender's code started with a C, a case management employee ID, not the usual Human Resources messages I would get. As a matter of fact, I remembered enough of the employee IDs to identify the sender as Dot... I smiled a bit, remembering the chipper and sharp woman well. A selfish part of me believed that Dot had sent the message to help me out personally, the woman terrified of the possibility of the Swedes killing me by accident.

But if she was the case manager for this job... _This might be an apocalypse matter? In the 1960s?_

"Explain." Axel says, pointing at the wording of the order. I shook the thought out of my head, whatever job they were here to do was none of my business.

"I'm assuming none of you carry the handbook?" I looked between the three of them, Otto in particular a little sheepish as he shook his head. I took two short steps to the bookshelf, pulling out a small leatherbound book with no text to denote what it was and flipped through the pages. I turned back to them and began to read out loud in a singsong voice: "Article fifty-two, subsection two... Upon retirement previous employees are not eligible for removal or elimination without prior written warning against un-condonable actions."

I handed the open book to Axel, who looked between me and the book.

"Means you're not allowed to kill me unless I interfere with your mission." I simplified, and Axel tilted his head slightly, regarding me. I then held out my own message to him, which he took carefully.

"And _this_ means I don't get paid until you're done. So how about we help each other?" I finally fixed my own mug of coffee with a small amount of cream and sugar, although I normally took it black. As I settled down in the armchair opposite the trio I made a point to show myself swallowing the coffee, letting out a small sigh as I did so. Axel nodded slightly to the others, and they began to drink as well.

"There are two beds in the spare room down the hall to the left and the couch pulls out." I internally cringed as I watched Oscar deposit two full teaspoons of sugar into his coffee as I spoke.

"I don't have many rules, just don't be followed back here," I began counting on my fingers, "don't mess with my business and I won't mess with yours, and try not to bleed on the carpet... it's new."

Axel nods toward Oscar, who reaches for his bag once more, causing me to slightly stiffen. From the bag Oscar hands his brother a stack of money, which Axel counts out while standing up from the table to tower over me.

"We stay here, for two weeks." He hands the money and my handbook over, which I took without breaking eye contact. I saw very little reason not to trust them, and pocketed the cash without counting.

* * *

To say the next few days were awkward would be an oversimplification. It hadn't so much been a conversation as much as an unspoken arrangement that I took on the role as their housekeeper slash cook, something I had never done for other renters. It was only logical... the more I did for them, the more they could focus on their assignment. The sooner they finished their assignment, the sooner my payments would start again.

But as much as I kept to myself, there were a few things I couldn't help but notice. Like how they had received at least _three_ messages since they had arrived in my house, or how they had the very disturbing ability to have full conversations without uttering a single word. I also pretended to be oblivious to how Otto seemed to stare at me constantly, most likely out of mistrust.

And I'd be damned if I didn't notice how divine Oscar looked with bedhead each morning as he rolled off the couch to breakfast each morning.

"I'm heading out to do some errands." I announced as I cleared the men's dishes from breakfast. I watched as Oscar and Otto stood up, the confusion on my face evident.

"They go with you." Axel said casually, immediately going back to reading the paper.

"No thank you, I can go alone." I retorted while slipping on my shoes.

"You are assignment." He stated firmly. "Not negotiable." I huffed slightly, looking between the two brothers waited expectantly.

As much as I wanted to argue that the greatest danger to me had been _them_ and I didn't truly require protection, I figured it wasn't worth it.

_Two weeks, two weeks and they're gone._ I thought as I crossed my arms and looked the men up and down.

"One. Not two."

Oscar went with me. I was slightly more pleased because he stood out slightly less than his brothers. As we left, I felt him following me, keeping a few steps behind. We had barely even made it a block when I stopped abruptly and turned around to face him.

"Can you please just walk with me? You're making me nervous, hovering over my shoulder like that." He seemed surprised by the outburst, but quickly shook it off and quirked his lip in the devilish smirk that seemed to be plastered on his face whenever I spoke to him. He moved to stand next to me and offered up his left arm, which I interlinked with immediately.

I hadn't much noticed it when he was with his brothers, but being alone and standing this close to him it dawned on me just how intimidating he was in his own right. Granted I stood at a measly 5'1" so _everyone_ was taller than me, but Oscar seemed to be relishing in it.

I actually had a rather well stocked pantry, so there wasn't much heavy shopping that needed to be done this week. One of the main perks of my house location was its proximity to the small yet ever-growing Chinatown, where I preferred to shop for things like meat and fresh produce. Oscar looked at me with interest as I ordered from the butcher in Mandarin, and how so many people in the community called out in the markets and along the streets to greet me. But he never said a word, so I didn't feel the need to explain.

My final stop was a fruit market, upon entering I grabbed a basket and handed it to Oscar.

"Pick whatever you and your brothers like." He gave a slight nod and went about the store, looking like a man on a mission while I picked up a box of raspberries and a dragonfruit for myself. I waited in line for the cash, the store largely empty except for the few people that were also regulars. As I approached to the front of the line, the elder woman's eyes lit up in recognition and I placed my items on the counter.

"Huā, nice to see you. You want some mango too? Very fresh." She spoke with a heavy Chinese accent, and added two mangoes from the display behind her to the order before waiting for my answer.

"Sure, thank you Auntie." I smiled. She always convinced me to buy more than I intended, but I didn't particularly mind. Just like when we had been walking, I could immediately feel Oscar's presence behind me. I turned to him to take the basket and placed it on the counter. The owner paused, eyes darting between the two of us.

" ** _Boyfriend_**?" She whispered in Chinese as if it were some great scandal, I chuckled lightly and shook my head while getting out my wallet.

" ** _No, new tenant..._** " She nodded in understanding, unloading the items that Oscar had and adding them to the total.

" ** _He's very quiet, isn't he?_** " The older woman commented, Oscar didn't seem to be paying much attention to us, instead actively glancing at the doors and observing the people still shopping in the aisles.

" ** _He's probably nervous, we're speaking in front of him in a language he doesn't understand._** " I defended, and the older woman nodded in recognition as she counted the change.

"So pretty, why do you not have a boyfriend?" My face flushed, eyes darting to the ceiling as if asking god _why_. Of course _that_ was the line of questioning when she would switch back to English. "You have a good nose, nice features."

"When a good man asks me, I'll have one." I argued with the same response I gave every week. My free hand finding it's way to my necklace, wrapping the chain around my finger and pulling nervously.

"Too picky." She tutted and pushed the grocery bag across the counter. "Park? Sunday?"

"I think I'll have my hands full this week." I sighed as I took the paper bag, adjusting the weight to balance on my hip.

"Good, I can finally win a game." I laughed at the determination and seriousness in her voice.

"Bye bye, Auntie." I called as I walked out the store. Oscar moved to take the bag of fruit from me, which I didn't object. I could feel his eyes on me as we walked back to the house side by side. I glanced up at him, and he wasn't even trying to hide that he was staring with that same smirk.

"Something on my face?" 

"So pretty." He gushed, repeating the words of the store owner. I narrowed my eyes at this man, this _very_ attractive man who was now practically beaming with a toothy smile.

"Not another word."


	2. Chapter 2

" _Don't_ put sugar in this one." I said firmly as I placed the mug of coffee in front of Oscar and a small pitcher of cream for Otto. Oscar glared up at me and took a sip, fully planning to spit the beverage out in protest. His face turned from annoyance to confusion as he swirled the liquid in his mouth and swallowed. It was already sweetened for him, but there was something else that cut through the usual bitterness of the dark roast blend. He easily drank half of the beverage in a few seconds despite its scalding hot temperature and looked back at me.

"Good?" I asked with a smug look on my face. He nodded and put the mug down on the table. Axel caught a whiff of the beverage and took Oscar's mug to his nose, eyebrows furrowing in concentration as he tried to identify the smell.

" _Kanel_?"

"Cinnamon and brown sugar." I confirmed. Oscar barked out a noise of disapproval as Axel took an experimental sip from his brother's mug. With a sly smile he slid his own empty mug into Oscar's place and nursed the new beverage in his gloved hand. Oscar all but jumped out of his seat while Axel leaned back coolly.

I placed a hand on his shoulder and guided him back down to sit.

"I'll make another one." I said and gently shook my head at Axel in disapproval, but the mirth in my eyes betrayed me. I wouldn't have guessed that he would have a sweet tooth as well since he took his coffee black like me.

I gave a quick wash to Axel's mug before filling it with what was left in the pot. I then grabbed the pitcher from the fridge with the amber colored simple syrup I had made the night before and stirred in roughly a tablespoon.

It hadn't taken too much effort on my part, and I positively couldn't stand watching Oscar shovel spoonfuls of just plain white sugar into his mug every morning. With no complementary flavors he was just overpowering what I had worked had to perfect.

The motion of Otto opening the fridge next to me made my head turn. He placed what unused cream there was back inside and reached out to me. I handed him the pitcher and thanked him as he put it away.

Not a moment later did I hear a sharp _twack_ and a groan from Otto. A high pitched bark of laughter left my lips at the sight of him nursing his head, which he obviously had hit by walking straight into the kitchen light fixture.

"I'm so sorry, are you alright?" I asked, half covering my lips with my hand to hide the lingering smile. He nodded as he continued to rub the spot, the tips of his ears turning a blush pink as he lumbered back to finish his breakfast.

" _ **Hit your head on more stuff, I want to hear her laugh again.**_ " Otto batted away the fork that Oscar began incessantly poking him with. As much as he wanted to deck his brother in the face right now, he had to restrain himself for her. He couldn't have her thinking he was just some large brute prone to violence.

" _ **Maybe she would laugh if I drown you in the sink**_." Otto averted his eyes as she returned to the table to give Oscar his new drink before proceeding into the living room to give the cats their breakfast.

Axel glanced at each of his brothers from his newspaper. 

Unlike his brothers, he still had conflicting feelings over the young woman's presence. There was no doubt in his mind that she had worked as a suit at the Commission. Her unfaltering upright posture and well groomed, put together appearance so strongly resembled all those management types that they had ever interacted with.

He occasionally wondered if they would have followed through with their original intent to eliminate her in search of quick housing had she been an ordinary civilian... but dwelling on what-ifs was not in his character. Even so, he doubted that they would have been able to. Oscar in particular had taken an almost possessive liking to her and the cats since they stepped through the front door.

And himself? He wasn't used to depending on anyone other than himself and his family, and it left an odd feeling in his stomach when he dwelled on it for too long.

Was this what it was like to have a maid?

No, that wasn't right. Besides the small hiccup in their arrival she showed no fear or timidness toward them, and generally let them be. She exhibited respect and kindness as if they were old friends, though he had an inkling that she showed those same virtues to enemy and friend alike.

He caught himself staring as she held certain cats back from the food bowl with her feet, allowing the scrawniest of the bunch to eat first.

"They say you have a beautiful laugh, like the hinge of a door." Axel spoke, grabbing her attention. She glanced over her shoulder and locked eyes with Axel. Her eyes flicker to the other two, who were staring at the eldest with semi-mortified expressions.

"A rusty door hinge, huh? You say that to all the ladies?" She laughed genuinely again. Now Oscar was determined, he was going to make her laugh the hardest of all.

"Only the pretty ones." He winked. She pointed a finger at her open mouth and made a retching sound. He put a hand over his chest in mock pain, to which she simply rolled her eyes.

He had gotten much bolder with flirtatious comments ever since that day at the fruit market. That along with small touches here and there, whether it be on the small of her back while he was passing by or deliberately touching her hand when she served food, just causal and innocent little instances.

Much to Oscar's frustration she had interpreted all of it as empty teasing, always responding with an eyeroll or a neutral " _uh-huh, sure._ "

"Liù! I know you're smart enough to know it's not your turn." She lectured the white spotted cat that had jumped over her foot and into the food bowl.

* * *

"Are you ticklish?" The question came as I dried the final plate from breakfast with the dishrag. I looked over my shoulder at Oscar who was standing behind me with his arms politely clasped in front of him. 

"No." I croaked unconvincingly.

"Why do you look scared, _jordviva_?" 

"Because you look like a crazy person right now." He took a step to rush at me and I immediately grabbed a wooden spoon. As I went to swing in the empty space still between us he easily plucked the weapon from my hand and spun me around. With one arm he held my midsection against his chest with an iron grip, my hands futilely trying to pry him off as he other hand found its way to my stomach.

A high pitched squeal was squeezed out of me as he began his assault, no amount of kicking or attempting headbutting against his chest even phasing him.

"O - Osc - car... St- staa - stop!" I pleaded between belting laughter, tears beginning to fall down my cheeks as I wheezed.

" _Nej_." His hot breath tickling my ear as he spoke. "No mercy for liars."

A whooshing and thud sounded in the nearby cabinet. Oscar paused his action to look at the cabinet, but continued to hold me tight against him as he reached over to retrieve the message. Oscar looked over to Axel, whos arms were folded with a disapproving look as if to say _your play time is over, let her go._

He did so begrudgingly, giving my body one final squeeze before taking the piece of paper out of the canister and sending it back through the tube. As soon as he turned his back I grabbed the dishrag and sharply hit him on the back of the head.

"What are you, twelve?" I scolded while smoothing my French twist updo and straightening out my blouse. Was it wrong that my heart was still pounding, even after my breathing had returned to a steady pace?

 _No, it was normal._ I convinced myself. I grew up in a different generation where people were more open with physical affection, and to some extent I must still crave it. I've been deprived of it for the better part of a decade, after all.

I looked at the trio in the living room, Oscar and Otto reading the new message over Axel's shoulders. Without speaking a word they went about gathering their packs and weapons, concealing them rather well in their thick overcoats. They each gave me an acknowledgement of a goodbye as they stepped out the door, off to do what they did best.

* * *

" ** _Cheater._** " Oscar ignored the grumbling Otto and jogged ahead to walk alongside Axel.

" _ **Why would you say door hinge? It is more like... like a river.**_ " Axel breathed in deep, maybe the words hadn't been as flattering as they were in his head. He sniffed again, now turning his head towards Oscar. The smell of her was still faintly on him, some sort of perfume that was sweet and earthy at the same time.

What was this protectiveness he was feeling all of a sudden? The sight of his youngest brother so easily able to hold her against her will formed like a rock in his stomach, even if it had all been jest.

This was their first protection mission in years, that was all... and the first one where they had to interact with the target. It was a new set of challenges, a learning opportunity.

" _ **A laugh is a laugh. It is just a good sound.**_ " Otto shrugged as the public bus pulled up to the stop.

" _ **I wouldn't need to say anything if Otto would look up for once this week.**_ " Axel said, effectively ending the conversation as they each loaded onto the bus.

Killing would clear his mind. They had stalled long enough this week in gathering intel. With their skill and an ounce of luck, their four targets would be dead by sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight clarification: At this point they have received orders to kill Diego and Allison. The message this morning of was to kill Hazel and Five and included the address. I'm imagining that the boys were given vague instructions, so they've been gathering intel on where Allison and Diego actually are in Dallas up to this point.
> 
> Kanel - cinnamon   
> Jordviva - primrose 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all that have reviewed and left kudos on this story so far! It really means the world to me, hope you enjoy!

I was only slightly surprised as I entered the living room the next morning that there were no signs that the trio had returned. The cats mewled and rolled around on the couch as the first streams of sunlight came through, more eager than normal for attention. I smiled to myself, thinking it strange how quickly they had been accustomed to the extra attention from Oscar. Well... maybe it wasn't too strange.

Despite how little they spoke, the house suddenly seemed much emptier without them there.

As I ran my fingers through my hair to gather it into a low bun I noticed how the texture was beginning to feel off, I was probably due for a good wash. But first, coffee.

I settled down on the couch, steaming mug in hand and the cats began to flock around me. Sān, a black cat with half an ear missing, took up her favorite position of perching on my shoulders with her tail occasionally flicking into my face as my mind warmed up with every sip. Two of the cats that had been sprawled out on the carpet walked in synch toward the front door, waiting patiently. A moment later I heard the heavy footsteps of the Swedes, and the subsequent unlocking of the door as they entered the house.

"Morning." I greeted as they removed their shoes. "There's coffee if you want any."

I could almost feel myself sigh with relief that none of them looked hurt, just tired and disgruntled. It looked as if they didn't get a wink of sleep since they left yesterday.

Oscar picked up the two cats that greeted them at the door and carried them over as he joined me on the couch, placing his new hat on the arm of the sofa and revealing hat hair that begged to be ruffled. As cute as it was, I raised an eyebrow at his change of attire and the dried bloodstains that colored the collar of the milkman uniform that he had... _procured._ God bless the poor sap that was in charge of filling out their removal reports now.

I held my hand out to him in a gimme motion, prompting him to remove the jacket. Miraculously, no blood had gotten onto the white undershirt of the uniform.

"You want me to strip so badly?" He asked while handing over the garment.

"Yes, my greatest dream is to see you naked at six o'clock in the morning." I said as flatly as humanly possible while taking another sip from my first cup of coffee for the day. 

"If our lady wishes..." Oscar began to undo his belt while scooting closer. I blinked any lingering sleep away from my eyes and stood up from the couch while tucking the jacket onto my arm. 

"Oh god, no." I shielded my eyes with my hand and walked past the trio to the staircase. A quick soak in hydrogen peroxide would lift the stain right out, which I could do in my own sink upstairs. "Make your own breakfast!"

I could hear Oscar's teasing laugh echoing behind me as I muttered a bit too loudly to myself, " _What kind of assassin chooses white?_ "

After toweling myself off from the much needed hot shower I lightly dressed myself in undergarments and silk robe, slipping the necklace that lay on the edge of the sink over my neck once more. Using a cloth I removed the fog from the bathroom mirror so that I could examine my face while combing the tangles from my hair. I took my makeup supplies out of the cabinet, eyeliner, blush, mascara, eyeshadows, and a foundation that was fairer than my own natural complexion. 

_What an interesting color of lipstick you're wearing._

_I don't recall a hurricane blowing through the office, but how else could your hair be so unruly._

_Your success rates are excellent. But as the trophy child of the department, have you considered shining those sad little shoes?_

_Consider a new foundation darling, the unevenness in your skin is showing through._

I hunched over the sink, hands gripping the sides of the porcelain as I took even breaths. Even though months had passed I could still hear _her_ voice chiming in on my appearance, my posture, the arrangement of my pens on my desk... every little slip up that I had made in my career.

Tough love, she had called it. Breaking me down so I could build myself to be stronger, or crack under the pressure. And it had taken several years until I finally cracked. 

I was no longer doing my makeup for her, to uphold to her standards of workplace professionalism. Now it was just a necessary evil of living in the 1960s South.

A loud knock at the door ripped me from my thoughts. I hesitated to leave in an undressed state and waited another moment, securely tying a knot in my blue silk kimono. The knocks came again. Three in a row, powerful and rapid... I knew the nature of that sort of knock. I exited the bathroom and hurried down the stairs, yelling out a _one moment_ as I made my way to the front door.

Axel was already there, eyeing the peephole with a hand on a pistol tucked into his waistband behind his back. He looked at me as I approached, but made no move to leave. I touched his shoulder and gently moved him to the side so I could swing open the door, a cop waiting patiently on the step.

"Good morning, officer. Can I help you?" I greeted. The bulkier man paid me no mind and instead addressed Axel.

"Sorry for the disturbance, sir. Two convicts escaped from the looney bin last night, and we're going door to door to see if there's been any suspicious activity."

"Oh my, how frightening... but no, nothing out of the ordinary here." I placed a hand over my chest in mock fear.

The man's eyes flickered to me, the way he scanned me up and down briefly before his eyes darted up at a tree indicating his discomfort. Then his eyes settled back to Axel who had been towering silently at my side, the cop's eyes hardened some.

"You know, we had a character witness saying that they saw three men with blond hair at the scene." 

My blood ran cold for a moment. There was no way... they wouldn't be so careless...

"Officer, I'm sure there are hundreds of blond men in Dallas. My husband was at home with me last night." I lied smoothly, feigning confusion while wrapping my free arm around Axel's waist and leaned into his body. He looked down at me a brief moment, face neutral before turning back to look at the officer. He wrapped his arm around me to return the side hug and rubbed his hand up and down my arm in a comforting gesture. Stiff, but comforting.

"Your husband, you say?" He looked between the two of us with a scoff. For the first time in the conversation he held direct eye contact with me and stood up straighter than before. "I don't see any rings."

_What is this, an interrogation?_

The man's stance, the way his hand rested oh so close to his gun... In a way I was relieved to realize that these intimidation tactics weren't out of suspicion. No... it was just another cop on a power high. Trying to intimidate a couple in the early morning, hoping that the man by your side would react negatively so he could stir up trouble. 

He was insecure... _afraid_ of Axel, and rightfully so. 

_Think fast, diffuse the situation, correct the problem..._

"Well... it's rather embarrassing." I mumbled, my face turning red from the panic that was beginning to seep in. I looked at the ground to avoid stumbling under the scrutiny of his gaze. I hooked a finger on the chain of my necklace, pulling it from underneath the neckline of my robe to reveal the diamond ring and plain gold band that usually rested on my chest. "But my fingers are too swollen to put the damn things on."

The officer eyed me curiously as my hand then drifted down to my stomach, rubbing it lightly. Suddenly, his eyes lit up in understanding.

"O-Oh! Congratulations, to the both of you." My eyes once again went to the officer's hands, which fumbled and found their way to rest on the front of his belt and away from his gun. His posture slouched slightly, indicating comfort. All these were good things. 

"What country did you get her from, eh? Her English is great." The cop asked Axel in a half-joking manner, causing Axel's brow to furrow in confusion.

_And there it is..._

"I'm from New York, officer." I explained, desperate to end the conversation.

"A Yankee chink, see something new everyday." I fake laughed, a horrible twisted feeling pooling in my gut. "You know I spent some time out East myself, during the War. Asian women I tell ya, so charming and exotic, and they've got this... mystical air around them." There was a definitive shift in Axel's energy as the man continued to speak, anger rolling off of him in waves as he held me closer and tried to pull me behind him and further into the house.

Without breaking eye contact with the police officer I moved my hand to behind Axel's back, gently stopping his own hand that was gripping the pistol tighter than before.

I felt Axel's eyes on me, a bit disapproving. But he would respect your wishes, no violence would enter your house if it could be avoided.

"Thank you, just... oh... all these questions are making my head spin." I all but pouted with the sweetest smile I could muster, the man eating it all up and backpedaling apologies.

"I'm very sorry for the intrusion, ma'am. But if you do happen to see these two, please call the station." He then held up a report with two headshots, most likely patient records from the institution. I leaned forward to look at the faces, the muscles in my back tensing immediately. I managed to calmly lean back and nod politely.

"Have a good day, officer." I moved to close the door and finally let out a shaky sigh of relief. For a moment neither Axel and I moved from our positions, and I'd be lying if the way that his toned arm securely held onto me wasn't doing something terrible to my insides. He moved to pull away first but his touch lingered, hand tracing up my arm and ghosting along the back of my shoulders before dropping to his side.

"You were seen?" I questioned, unwillingly pulling my arm from his waist and taking a step back to lean against the front door. I crossed my arms in front of myself rigidly, trying to moderate my breathing so he wouldn't notice how wildly my heart had been beating.

"Only..." He couldn't seem to think of the appropriate word, instead making a circling motion with his index finger near the side of his head.

So the officer had been exaggerating when he said it was a key witness. Knowing the social structure of the 1960s there was no way that testimonial would amount to anything.

"The police would only take this so seriously if some of their own were killed." I commented, mind drifting to the blood splatter I had just removed from Oscar's new white jacket. Axel shrugged lightly in response.

"You know our target. The man." It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement of acknowledgement. I shrugged my shoulders back at him.

"About as well as any 90's kid knows the Umbrella Academy."

There was no mistaking the shaggy asylum escapee as Diego Hargreeves, Number Two. The Academy had always been somewhat of a legendary curiosity among case management, highly trained crime fighters that had been working towards a safer world... a noble concept worth admiring.

The woman, on the other hand, I couldn't quite place. But something deep in my gut told me that I knew that face, those deep brown eyes in particular. 

My attention was brought back to Axel as he pursed his lips together in confusion. It was subtle, but the more time I spent with him the more easily I could distinguish the slight changes in his expression. 

"You _do_ know about the Umbrella Academy, right?" The question hadn't meant to be condescending, more like shock. As he shook his head no with that icy cold stare I knew I had put myself in a corner. But if they were going to complete this job, they should at least know what they're up against.

I motioned for him to follow me as I walked upstairs to my bedroom.

"You can come in, no need to lurk." She called to him, still standing in the doorway. Axel felt like he was stepping over private territory. She seemed unabashed at having a man in her room, but it felt like an invisible line that he was crossing.

He took a few steps into the room, but was unsure what was the proper spot for him to stand. He watched as she scanned the spines of the bookshelf with a slightly hunched posture. 

It was only in that moment that it occurred to him that in the week they had been there, he had never seen her without makeup, or even with her hair down. It was much longer than he expected, the dark wet tresses clinging to the silk robe. There were also features of her face that seemed different, softer... less exaggerated.

He pushed down the feeling that seeing her like this was a privilege just for him. That would be ridiculous, of course. This was her house, she should be as comfortable as she pleased.

"Could you be a dear and get that box down for me?" She pointed to a shelf that her fingertips couldn't even reach in the closet. He did so with ease, handing the unassuming beat-up cardboard box down into her waiting hands. "Thank you, now let's see..." She set the box down on her bed, laying out items gently but haphazardly. Framed university degrees, leatherbound journals, an advanced calculator, a postcard that read _Greetings from Syracuse_... Little pieces of her life that she had deemed worthy enough to save.

"Ah-ha." She said triumphantly and held out a comic book to him, the cover showing a group of six small children in school uniforms fighting against a group of bank robbers. It was well worn with creases and staples barely clinging onto the seams. "Umbrella Academy."

He paused for a moment and quirked an eyebrow at her, hardly seeing how this was relevant. She gestured with her head for him to take it, and he did so carefully, opening the first page and bringing it closer to his face in scrutiny. _No. 2 - Diego, No. 3 - Allison, No. 5 - Five_... Were these really their targets? The uniforms of the superpowered children in the comic clearly matched what the boy yesterday had been wearing, minus the mask.

He flipped through the introductory pages, skimming through the breakdown of their powers. If this boy could really teleport through space, that would explain how he had disappeared from behind the car without a functional briefcase.

His mind began to swirl with new strategies - 

"Y'all better be getting hazard pay for this assignment." Axel's nose perked up, attention being torn from his reading. He glanced over and watched as she rubbed a solid perfume between her wrists, the smell he began to associate with her growing stronger as it warmed up beneath her skin. How could she be so casual with a man, nay an assassin, in her bedroom?

It all felt too intimate.

"Are you?" She reiterated, not satisfied with his lack of response. "If not I'll march down to Carmichael's office myself to fill out the paperwork."

"We have killed worse men." Was the only answer that could come to his mind as he watched with interest as she applied the fragrance behind her ear.

"Alright, tough guy." She conceded, meeting his gaze straight on. "You can borrow that if you want, it just can't leave the house. Publication dates and all that."

His calculating stare wandered down the nape of her neck to the gold rings resting against her chest, now exposed to the light. The obvious questions danced in his head, was she married? Probably not, or at least not still... otherwise she would wear them on her hand. Where was her husband, or ex-husband, now? Did people like her, like _them_ , ever find partners after the Commission?

_Why would any man leave her?_

"My eyes are up here, mister." She snapped jokingly, tapping the side of her temple with one finger. She looked down and noticed what he had actually been staring at, and carefully tucked the rings back into her robe.

"He did not like cats?" Axel asked with a coy smile, now looking at the doorway at the scrawny grey cat that had made its way up the stairs. While all of creatures had warmed up to Oscar, this was the only one that dared to get close to the oldest brother. Axel must have been secretly fond of the cat as well, allowing it to rub up against his leg.

"He died." She said casually, leaning down to pick up the creature before it could pounce onto her bedsheets. "But yeah, he was allergic."

The smile on Axel's face dropped immediately as she stepped closer to him once more, reaching back into the box and pulled out an unframed full colored photograph from the very bottom of the pile. A much younger version of her stood stiffly next to a tall, wiry man with a sharp jaw, dark eyes, and a deep pink scar just barely poked out from his collar. The gaudy and elaborate red robes with gold embroidery the two of you wore threatened to swallow her thinner frame. There was a smile on her lips, but it was slight and didn't hold a flicker of the warmth that he had unknowingly grown accustomed to when she spoke to him and his brothers.

"It's strange, isn't it? When a person is reduced to a photo and memories." She said knowingly while bouncing the cat in her other arm like a newborn babe. He could almost feel a red heat of his own family photograph burning a hole in his trouser pocket. "You're very lucky, to have people who care for you so deeply. I've come to find that it's a very rare gift."

None of them had smiled or spoken this much since their mother passed, the loss still fresh in their minds. But somehow she had brought a new joy to their lives. Instead of allowing them to wallow in frustration at their failures, she was waiting at the house with a smile and reassurance to unwind and try again.

Axel looked at her now, her sad smile illuminated in the sunlight that came through the gaps in the window curtains. This connection, she knew who they were, what they did, just like them she was a being removed from time with a past that didn't need to be shared. Never able to truly belong to one place or another.

How was it that she could read him so easily? Carrying the conversation with grace, never expecting a response.

"Guess I better go finish up hiding my _exoticness_." She joked dryly while gesturing to her unmade face before packing the picture back into the box with the other items scattered across her bed. 

It would be improper of him to entertain feelings for a grieving widow.

"You look-" 

_Enchanting in all that you wear, regardless of your efforts._

"...good in blue." The words fell out of his mouth without much thought and gestured to her robe. His face hardened at his own stupidity, but she remained entirely unphased by his cold demeanor. 

"Thank you, Axel." She smiled up at him with those kind, childlike eyes. There was no veil of dishonesty like when she spoke to the cop, just pure unabashed joy. 

_Very improper, indeed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the perspective changes, going forward the story will be in third person. It's been a while since I've written and it took a bit to find my voice again. At some point I might edit the previous chapters to match.


	4. Chapter 4

Primrose stood alone in the kitchen as she wrote the cooking instructions for the newly prepared chicken and biscuits casserole on her notepad. The sound of the kettle whistling from the stovetop prompted her to reach over and turn off the flame and set the tea on the unheated side of the stove to steep. It was the time she usually had her mid afternoon cup of coffee, but the caffeine kick from the black tea from the back of the cupboard would have to do the trick. 

She tightly wrapped the top of the casserole dish with aluminum foil before taping the note to the top and setting the whole thing in the freezer to be hand delivered later that night.

As she went to grab a mug for the drink she internally screamed. While she appreciated that they cleaned up after themselves, it was beyond her why all of her dishware had made its way to the top two shelves of the cabinet that had lay bare since she moved into the god forsaken house. Just as she considered pulling over the dining room chair, a creek in the floorboards alerted her to one of the brothers entering the living area.

"Otto, could you help me reach these mugs?" He gave a slight nod and came to stand next to her. She didn't miss the ghost of a smile that passed over his features as he handed them down. It made her wonder if this inconvenience was more intentional that she initially thought.

"Would you like to try some?" She held the open box of loose leaves out to him to smell. Her breath hitched ever so slightly as he hunched down to do so, a few locks of his long hair freeing themselves from behind his ear. After a thoughtful moment he nodded and moved to rearrange the cabinets to their original low configuration. 

She poured the hot tea through a strainer into each of the two mugs and grabbed a can of condensed milk that she kept in the fridge. This was one of the few things that she never measured, the process of preparing a perfect milk tea forever engrained in her memory from years and years of practice. The only sound in the kitchen was her spoon scraping lightly against the walls of the ceramic mug as she watched the amber liquid to turn a pale brown color. 

She carried the mugs over to the table and set one in front of Otto, who did a small nod of thanks while rolling his wrist and flexing his hand opened and closed.

"Your hand cramping up?" He nodded. She stood up and moved her chair so that she was facing him and their knees were almost touching. She held her hands out to him with opened palms and gestured to his hand. "May I?"

He wasn't exactly sure what she meant, but held his hand out to her regardless. She turned it around so that the palm was flat facing her and rested his elbow on the table. She wrapped her smaller hands over his wrist, slowly and deliberately spreading the skin along his palm, pushing and pulling to loosen up the muscles.

"I took a class on how to do this when I was in university." She explained, oblivious to the way Otto was looking at her through half lidded eyes as she focused on creating small circles near the base of his thumb. The pads of her fingertips were soothingly cold to the touch, but quickly absorbed the heat of his own skin. "My teacher had the dumbest names for the steps, like _spread the butter_ or-" She turned his hand over, hooking into the webbing between his thumb and pulling until the skin stopped " _the electric slide_."

His eyes crinkled in amusement as he watched her work, confident and deliberate in her hand movements on his skin. Primrose had to remind him to relax several times as she made her way through each of his digits, causing soft sounds of popping as the gas released from his joints.

She remarked how tense his wrist was as she interlaced his fingers with hers, reminding him again to slack his muscles as she pushed and pulled his hand while holding on steady to his wrist.

"May I?" She asked for permission yet again as she gently touched the buttons on his sleeve. He nodded, watching her deftly undo the buttons and roll the sleeve up to his elbow, beginning to apply more pressure to his wrist and working her way upward.

"I do remember all of it though, so maybe there was a method to his madness." He couldn't help the sigh that escaped his throat as her thumbs pulled on the tendons of his forearm, releasing tension he hadn't even known to be there. The relief of pressure shot all the way to the base of his neck, his head now drooping slightly.

Her heart beat quickened at the noises he made though barely parted lips. He wasn't one for words, so any sound that she could get from him was blessed and welcome. While Oscar and Axel were a deep rumble that reverberated in her own throat, Otto's voice was much softer, like a secret psalm that left her entranced each time she had the pleasure of experiencing it.

"Let me know if I'm hurting you, ok?" She said, trying to regain some sense of a professional mindset. Without missing a beat he let out an amused huff of air. She sent a glare that was meant to be intimidating, but it only made him smile wider.

The size difference between the two of them was laughable at best. He had been fumbling like a fool, banging his head on light fixtures and doorways, keeping his legs in as must as possible underneath the dining table. But every piece of the house seemed to swallow her whole. Even now her feet couldn't even reach the floor while sitting in the kitchen chair, toes just barely skimming the floorboards.

" _Lilla lamm_." He commented, but from his tone she couldn't tell if it was fondness or mockery. 

" _Wǒ bù shuō_ Swedish." She looked up with him in mischief in her eyes. "I don't speak Swedish."

"To speak the English words, I require time to think." He said slowly and deliberately.

"I understand." She nodded thoughtfully. "That's why I go to Chinatown so often. If I don't practice, I'll forget it all."

"You remember Sharon who lives down the block? Came over earlier this week?"

Of course he remembered. The woman had come in sobbing so pitifully that she had hardly noticed the three of them were even there. From what they could tell, this had become some sort of routine. With fluid movement Primrose sat the woman at the dining table with a box of tissues and pulled a small bag of cosmetics and a bottle of gin from under the kitchen sink. 

At first Primrose had insisted on not covering up the dark bruises that littered her face, afraid to get makeup in the open wound. But after hearing the pleas of how she couldn't go back home with a black eye as it would only make her husband more upset, she finally gave in.

He admired how calm she had been, luring the other woman into a sense of ease and humming along to the radio music. It was rude to stare at such a vulnerable moment for the other woman, but he found that he couldn't turn away from the concentration and care Primrose took as she applied a combination of lipstick, foundation, and powders while occasionally taking swings from her cocktail. Although it was a bit heavyhanded, the only evidence of what lay beneath the layers was the busted red vein in the woman's eye.

After Sharon had calmed down (and thoroughly tipsy), she did introduce herself and excused her behavior. Claimed she had a bad habit of falling in the tub. Evidentially, she was also used to immigrants who spoke little English renting out Primrose's spare room, so she didn't pay them much mind as she and Primrose began rounds of card games.

The two of them spoke of nothing and everything, from the best way to get grease out of white clothes to the baby shower another neighbor was hosting. Sharon did most of the talking, with Primrose making a noise of acknowledgement every now and again.

" _My cousin Milo's getting married next month, too close to Christmas in my opinion_ _." Sharon said critically in her thick Southern drawl._

_"Better that than summer weddings, too hot."_

_"You've got a problem with blue skies?"_

_"It's too blue." Primrose griped, the flushed color of her cheeks just barely peeked through her own powdered face. "November should be grey, crisp, and somewhat oppressive. I want to feel like if I turn down the wrong street corner a serial killer might corner me and my screams are smothered by fog."_

_"Lord knows why you moved to the South." The other woman chuckled, strangely charmed by the bluntness of her host._

_"If it ever snows in Dallas, I'll die a happy woman."_

_Primrose doubled down as Sharon added to the betting pile a tad too gleefully. Her intuition was right, and her opponent turned over the cards to reveal a flush, which was easily beat by her own four of a kind._

_"How come you never got married? Surely you've had gentlemen interested." The woman questioned. The three brothers all looked at each other, now tuned into the conversation._

_"Guess I'm not the type of gal men are lining up for." Primrose answered vaguely while dealing the cards for the next round._

_"Nonsense. What about that fella that comes calling?"_

_Primrose's face scrunched up, trying to recall who she was talking about._

_"Who? Eric? No, I just know his mother is all."_

_She scoffed at the response, flipping over the next card in the pile._

_"Honey, you are denser than a bowl of grits left out on an August afternoon." Primrose hummed with indifference with the comment, noticing how the woman's face fell as she began to think. "But you're not missing much."_

_She knew better than to press. The more she tried to ask about the bruises and their increasing frequency, the more the housewife shriveled up. At least she could offer her a semblance of a save haven, somewhere where she could focus on games instead of the stress of homemaking, or the stress of fitting in with the other housewives. It made her happy when the young woman bit her lip in deep thought as she drew cards. Primrose regarded her own hand and the options in front of her as Otto came to the table, refilling both of the iced teas with the pitcher from the counter. She thanked him and took another long sip, Sharon glancing at him as he walked away._

_"My word, the ones you've got this time are gorgeous. If I were you I would be climbing that one like a tree." Primrose sputtered into the drink at the inappropriate comment. Taking a moment to steady her breathing as to not choke on her tea before recomposing herself._

_"Pay attention, unless you want to lose another round." She said hoarsely, clearing her throat once more._

_"Can you blame me? I swear you must be some secret nun." She flipped another card over, comparing her hand and placing another chip in the center._

_"Why on Earth would a nun be secretive?"_

_"You tell me." Sharon said with a smile before her face turned serious, leaning in across the table as she spoke in a more hushed tone. "You know I've read in the papers, of women with imbalances... say they be viewing other woman the way they do men."_

_"Oh my god." She whispered under her breath, leaning her head against her hand as she closed her eyes. She had insisted to Sharon that the boys hardly understood English so that she could be comfortable and speak freely, but not about her sexuality. She obviously didn't get the hint and carried on with the line of thought._

_"They have treatments for that sort of thing now! Special root teas."_

_"Sharon I will PAY you to stop talking." She all but pleaded, opening her eyes again. Her eyes locked immediately with Oscar's who was sitting on the couch hand clasp over his mouth and nearly bursting with laughter at her discomfort._

_"Then settle." She challenged, placing a few more of the poker chips in their little betting pile. Rose looked at her own hand before leaning back and analyzing the smugness of her opponents body language._

_"You don't have anything." She accused. The way the woman's eyes were darting around and the lazy way she held her cards, overselling the lie that she was confident in her hand._

_"Maybe I do, maybe I don't. You don't know everything, Rosie."_

_"Fold." She said, scowling as the other woman lay out mismatching, low valued cards. Rose crossed her arms, shaking her head lightly in disapproval. "The whole reason of you practicing with me was to build strategy. Bullying your opponent isn't a strategy."_

_"I won, didn't I?" The other woman said with a smile as sweet as sugar. Primrose rolled her eyes and reached into her bra to pull out a small roll of bills, handing them out across the table._

_"I don't want your breast money." Sharon laughed, pretending to be offended._

_"Don't worry, there's a root tea for that." She quipped back, causing the other woman to laugh even louder. As Sharon reached out to take the bills, Primrose pulled them back out of her reach, a warning look in her eye._ _"I'm getting this back next time, and then some." She teased, before depositing the winnings in Sharon's hand._

_Her lips formed a thin line as she caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall._

_"I should get started on dinner, Jimmy hates when it's late." Primrose could tell she was hesitant to leave, but couldn't muster up any words of encouragement._

" _Have you ever heard of Giulia Tofana?" She blurted out, eyes on the table as she began to gather the playing cards. "She was a famous poison maker in the 1600's, in the last moments of her life she admitted to killing at least 600 men. The Queen of Poison, they called her."_

_"Why do you know all this... stuff?" Sharon asked with a mixture of awe and concern._

_Maybe the gin had been a bad idea._

_"Call it a hobby." She shrugged, her lips were becoming terribly loose from the buzz of the alcohol._ _"But think about that, back then must of taken a whole lot of effort to make poison, find a buyer... nowadays they sell it in the pest control aisle. How far science has come."_

_"You're an odd one, Rosie." Sharon shook her head, carrying the empty glasses to the sink in an effort to help clean up. "Six hundred men? Surely not all of them were bad."_

_"I don't believe in good or bad. People are just that... people."_

"Her husband was found _beaten_ to death in an alleyway last night." Her eyes glanced at Otto's opposite hand, dried blood scabbing over across his knuckles. "Said his face was so mangled they can't even do an open casket."

Good and bad existed in this world. She could objectively admit that. But people? To be able to draw that line in the sand was a near impossible task, one that she was ill equipped to do. If she tried to make that judgement it would go against everything she stood for while she worked at the Commission. And if her worldview could change as easily with one battered woman, what was the point of the last seven-odd years of her life?

"We protect you." Otto affirmed. Those three words were so simple, but they weighed as heavily as a vow. Primrose had secretly pined after the handsome assassins for years without ever meeting them, and now that they were in her life it was difficult to remind herself that she was just another mission to them.

Most people would say objectively, the Swedes were bad people.

"I know. Although I'm not sure if _that_ was part of your job." She leaned back in the chair, creating distance between them once again as she absentmindedly pulled at the chain of her necklace.

She _was_ a bad person... others had already decided that for her...

Her movements slowed as he reached out to her with his bloodied hand, his fingertips grazing her cheek with an unearthly tenderness. She smiled as he pulled his hand back and saw one of her eyelashes balanced on the pad of his fingertip. Without putting much thought into a wish, she blew it off of his hand. Internally she was kicking herself from how uncomfortable he seemed to act around her, had she pushed too far in trying to help? Perhaps he simply didn't like to be touched.

"At least slightly better, I hope? Not a complete waste of your time?"

He nodded and thanked her, feeling rewarded himself at the brilliance that was her smile.

"Anytime, handsome! It's no bother." She patted his knee and stood up with her own mug, off to finish the reading she had set out to do.

Otto took a sip from the mug as he watched her leave. He never liked tea, but somehow she made it better.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Painful pining. Warning: mention of suicidal thoughts

There were several activities that Primrose engaged in to keep her mind sharp and days fruitful. It was fortunate that the trio had arrived after several rigorous months of teaching herself to be a decent cook. She was ashamed to say the small fire extinguisher that hung on the kitchen wall was not the first, or even the second that she had owned. On most weekends she gambled with the local Chinese women and on weekdays played bridge with the neighboring housewives. Her living situation given her age were of a curiosity to most, but she was sociable and likeable enough that no one spoke of it negatively to her face.

One of her most peaceful activities was balancing the financial accounts for the nearby church the third week of every month. She wasn't one to practice religion, but it was a small congregation that didn't mind her lack of attendance, and surprisingly was of an open enough mind to trust a woman volunteer with such a duty.

And she was always desperate to tackle a mathematical problem, even something as basic as double checking the expense reports. 

She was falling a bit behind though and decided to finish the paperwork over dinner. Living alone, she was more than comfortable with eating in silence, and the Swedes weren't ones to bring up meaningless small talk for the sake of conversation. 

"What was your job at Commission?"

Well, at least _most_ of the time they didn't. It was mainly Oscar that asked questions that ranged in the seriousness of their nature. It made her wonder when was the last time any of them had talked, really _talked_ to another person was beyond a performance review. 

"Case manager." Primrose reminded, not taking her eyes off the paper she was writing on. She took the opportunity to inform the men of procedures they had been indifferent to. "An operator notices an anomaly in the timeline and gives the information to an analyst. Then the analyst gives the job to a case manager, such as _moi_ , to find the best way to maintain the timeline, and then I gave those messages to the tube operator, and then you get the tubes."

"I also had the _pleasure_ of explaining to my superiors why it was _acceptable_ that a _certain someone_ just dumped five skinned bodies on the side of a major highway." She half teased. "Because that's the perfect way to spend a Friday night."

Oscar gritted his teeth and lightly chuckled as Otto quirked an eyebrow at him. He knew exactly what mission she was referring to, and his brothers had been none the wiser that the youngest hadn't actually buried their victims in the woods like he promised until now. 

"Before then? What did you do?" Oscar asked in an effort to change the topic.

Axel shot a murderous look to his brother across the table as her movements stilled. Her eyes darted up from the paperwork to meet Oscar's before drifting downward to stare blankly at the tablecloth. 

"I was... a crime statistics analyst." She replied slowly, the words feeling so foreign and familiar at the same time. She refocused her attention in adjusting the slide rule to the proper reading and transcribed the last line on the balancing book. The pages were then straightened and tucked back into their manila folder.

"Erm, how do I explain. I wrote papers about crime in the city, if it was increasing, why it was increasing..." She took a bite of carrot from her barely-touched dinner, her head bobbed slightly as she remembered back fondly. "A lot of data, a lot of statistics... needed to understand people and how they think, why they do the things they do."

"Why do you think, we do what we do?" Oscar pressed, earning him a swift kick under the table from Otto. 

It wasn't fair, he figured, that she knew so much about them.

She shrugged. Her answer was simple, but resolute. 

"No one with a happy life has ever been offered a job by the Commission." 

_The wind howled against her face, threatening to knock her body off balance each time it blew. She committed every detail to memory: the coldness of the steel bridge eating through her flimsy jeans, the crunching sound of gravel as the occasional car passed by, the starless sky that watched her from above. There was an odd calmness about realizing these sensations would be her last._

_She would die as she lived best, alone. No one would notice her absence in society, her final mark would be a simple data point for another analyst to factor in their report._

_If anything, her husband - or rather ex husband's \- family would revel in her demise. In their traditional mindset it would merely mean that their son would receive his wife back in the afterlife. _

_But she didn't believe in such things. There was nothing beyond this life._

_The idea of nothing, pure darkness akin to the gentle lapping of the river below, had become an intoxicating thought._

_There was no forward path, no sensible way that she could go on living as she was._

_"Such an uninspired way to go." The young woman weakly turned her head around, surprised that anyone passing by had even noticed her sitting in the darkness. The blonde woman in the black trenchcoat and red stiletto heels came to her side, looking down with a smirk on her face._

_"How do you mean?" Primrose wasn't sure she had heard her right, and even if she had... she could think of no proper response._

_"Of all the ways to die, I can think of at_ _**least** _ _ten methods that invoke more of a flare for the dramatic." She lifted the birdcage veil into her perfectly positioned hat and removed the large sunglasses from her face. The striking blue eyes that finally met hers didn't put Primrose at ease. The woman's stare was blank, icy. If anything, she looked inconvenienced._

_"Guess I'm not very creative."_

_"Oh, I think you are." She insisted, lighting a cigarette and taking a puff out of a sleek, long holder. She extended her pinkie finger and raised an eyebrow as she insisted. "Indulge me."_

_Primrose turned her head to look forward, unsure._

_"The most common methods are hanging and shooting, with males seventy-five percent more likely to reach for a gun." Primrose recounted, obedient to the request of the elegant stranger. "Of course there's the Lupe Velez route. She overdosed on pills and laid down on a bed of flowers, professionally done hair and makeup, the whole nine yards of beauty."_

_"But her last meal of didn't quite agree with the overdose of pills, and they found poor little Ms. Velez face down the the toilet positively **covered** in her own sick." The mystery woman_ _recounted with mirth in her voice, blowing out a steady puff of smoke. She offered the open cigarette case to Primrose._

_Did people even carry cigarette cases anymore? She had only seen them in vintage movies._

_"No, thank you." The woman stepped closer, arm still extended._

_"If you're so intent on dying, might as well."_

_Primrose reached up and took one from her slim, manicured fingers, waiting patiently as she procured a lighter. She'd smoked quite a bit of marijuana in college, but nothing could have prepared her for the absolutely retched taste that perforated her mouth with the first inhale. She clumsily coughed out a cloud of smoke and tightly shut her watering eyes, determined not to vomit in front of this stranger._

_"So, you're not here to talk me off the edge, so what is it? Get your kicks off of watching?" She choked our bitterly. The woman seemed amused by the question._

_"Actually Primrose, darling." Her heart nearly froze at the use of her name. "I'm here to offer you a job."_

The conversation was effectively cut off by the sound of yet _another_ tube arriving for them. Axel fetched the message from the cabinet, and Otto and Oscar were hot on his heels to read the new assignment over his shoulders. 

Oscar went to put on the newly cleaned milkman jacket that Primrose had left folded on the chair, but paused as he put it on. It felt... more snug? And the sleeves now reached his wrists, not the middle of his palm like before. He slipped one arm off and looked at the new stitching on the inside of the jacket. The seam was tightly stitched and slightly uneven, but now it fit his shoulders almost perfectly.

Oscar ran his fingers over the new seam and looked back at her, his jaw slack in confusion and awe.

"It looked a little big on you." She said sheepishly, already moving to clear off the table.

He was used to Axel repairing their clothes, but his brother's work was always practical. He only patched when the holes of their clothing became too large, and even then there was very little regard for looks or fit, just longevity. 

Tailoring the stolen jacket to fit him was so unnecessary, so unwarranted... but she had done it just for him. Oscar ignored his brothers as they waited for him impatiently at the door. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he moved back into the kitchen area and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Her mind hadn't processed the kiss that he had pressed into her cheek until they were out the door, her fingers drifted up to rest on the still tingling skin. 

* * *

As the trio stumbled back into the house well past midnight, Oscar did his best to shush the cats that flocked around them. His efforts appeared to be in vain as light flooded down from the top of the stairs, a worried looking Primrose greeting them as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It was obvious whatever mission they had set out on did not go according to plan, all three of them looking haggard, clothes ripped up and hair wild. Axel seemed to be the worst off, flinching as he shed his jacket. 

She asked if there was anything she could do for them, to which Axel barely looked at her before shaking his head and retiring to the spare room without a word. Otto was close behind, but paused to pet the top of her head with his large hand before disappearing down the hall, the door to the room closing with a faint click. 

Although he didn't ask, Primrose fetched a glass of iced water for Oscar, who was leaning back on the couch with his eyes closed. He took it gratefully, swiftly drinking and wiping his chin as some water dripped down from his face.

She huffed as he threw the leftover ice cubes at the cats, which gnawed at them loudly as if they were treats. Her heart strings pulled a little bit as he begrudgingly got up to unfold the couch, gently shooing the cats from the cushions.

"Are you sure you don't want my bed tonight, Oscar?" She spoke before even realizing the implication behind the offer, the Swede turned around with a bemused expression. "You need good rest to be focused." She clarified. 

"Yes, if we share." He stood at his full height and placed his hands in the deep pants pockets. 

She was very good at reading people, their body language, the meaning behind their words... it was like a sixth sense, and it had always served her well in both of her careers. 

Yet as her gaze scanned Oscar, patiently waiting with a soft smile and blue eyes that held a confident tenderness, her mind drew a complete blank.

Was he challenging her? Was it more empty flirting? 

"You better not be wearing that." She gestured to the white milkman outfit, now covered in grass stains and dirt before turning to walk upstairs. She tucked herself into bed and turned to her side, back facing the door she left ajar. After a few minutes she heard the soft thuds of feet climbing the stairs and a man entering the room, closing the door behind him.

The bed dipped as Oscar laid down, tucking himself under the covers. He let out a loud satisfied sigh as he shifted all his weight onto the mattress and pillow, probably relieved at the feeling of such a plush bed after repeated nights on the stiff couch that was barely big enough for him to lay down fully.

" _Tack sa mycket!_ " He sighed, and she swore she could hear the smile on his face. "Thank you."

She just hummed in response, pretending to be more tired than she really was in her own little ball off to the side. She felt him toss and turn a bit, and let out a small squeak when two strong arms wrapped around her shoulders and waist, pulling her toward the center of the bed. Her shoulders were pressed against his muscular chest as he squeezed her tight in a hug. 

"You smell nice." He commented dozily, pressing his face into the crown of her head.

"Vanilla and sandalwood." She muttered in the darkness, readjusting her weight to account for the arm beneath her.

She took a deep breath, the smell of dirt, sweat, and gunpowder from the man holding her making her stomach turn in the most wonderful ways. In her mind she imagined what Oscar's lips would feel like against her neck, if his hands would be soft or hard as they stroked her bare skin... As his breathing shifted, now rhythmic and deep, she admonished herself for even entertaining such thoughts. 

She considered squirming out of his hold, but there was something so comforting at the way the dead weight of his arms held her. Maybe it was just the fact it was late, but sleep came easier than usual.

At some point of the night they had untangled themselves from one another, and the next morning she rose up on bed slowly, trying not to wake the man beside her. As soon as her legs swung over the edge of the bed, those two same arms circled around her waist lazily. She sucked in a deep breath, fully aware that if she caught so much of a glimpse of his disheveled platinum hair she would be done for. 

"I would like to do this, every night." Oscar muttered in her ear, his chin was heavy on her shoulder as he slumped against her.

Of course he would, she could hardly imagine how well rested he could have been sharing the couch with the furry creatures.

"Let me go make breakfast, you flirt." She laughed, lightly slapping his arms. He let out a hum, as if weighing the options. He pressed a kiss on her temple and let himself lay back down. She denied that there were any romantic implications to the gesture, brushing it off as a foreign thing.

After getting dressed and made up for the day, she began preparing breakfast. It wasn't too long until Axel limped out of the room, she greeted him and handed him a cup of coffee fresh from the pot. He mumbled a thanks and sat down at the table. His face grimaced as he raised the mug to his lips, body taught as a bow. Testing a theory, she crumbled up a piece of paper from her notepad and tossed it in his direction.

"Catch." The paper ball lamely bounced off his head and fell to the floor. Without moving a muscle his eyes turned to glare at her. "That's what I thought." 

He was definitely in a lot of pain, and was trying to hide it. She had seen a glimpse the bruises on Oscar's shoulder and side that had matured in color during the night, but Axel seemed to be much worse. She moved to retrieve a medicine kit from underneath the sink. It had all of the basics, antiseptics and such, but she took a moment to scribble on her notepad a self reminder to pick up more first aid materials... just in case. From the kit she took out the small red tin of Tiger Balm. 

"May I rub this on your back? It'll help." With a barely contained groan he removed his shirt without hesitation. Primrose frowned at the mixture of dark purple and yellow bruising that traveled down his skin. All assassins had some form of enhanced durability and accelerated healing factor, so how could this even happen? Was he hit by a truck?

She harshly bit the inside of her cheek as she began to apply the ointment on Axel's well-defined muscles. Did this man have an _ounce_ of fat on him? 

It was borderline pathetic that a simple kiss on the cheek or even a hug could leave her so hot and bothered, but all three of them really _were_ gorgeous. But the Swedes weren't just ordinary men, they could never be interested in someone as plain as her for even a casual fling.

The combination of the tingling menthol and her cold hand rubbing gentle circles against his hot skin was pure bliss. Axel sat as still as a statue, resisting the urge to lean further into her touch with every fiber of his being, wondering what it would feel like if her hands were instead clawing at his back as he fucked her.

If he closed his eyes he could imagine it clearly, picking her up and driving into her against the very wall in front of him. Or maybe he would be kind and let her ride him instead, considering she was so small.

" _Axel_ -" His shoulders flexed, so thick in his delusion he could practically hear his name on her lips. "Are you ok?"

His eyes snapped open, the fantasy melting away. He hadn't noticed that his breathing had become labored enough to raise concern.

He gave a sharp nod while keeping his head forward, his eyes searching wildly to fixate on any mundane feature of the room. The off-white trimming that ran against the ceiling, the neat collection of playing cards and tile-based games in the small cupboard, the cats that were lazily stretching in the sliver of sunlight peeking through the drapes...

Axel did a double take as he looked back at the couch. He closed his eyes to listen for a moment, not hearing any running water from the bathrooms.

"Where is Oscar?" He asked, voice still thick with sleep.

"He slept in my room last night." She said as she finished applying the balm to his bruises and walked to the kitchen to wash her hands. "I think he's still asleep." Axel all but growled behind her, face turning sour as he pulled his shirt over his head with more ease than before. 

The sounds of sizzling eggs and the morning radio droned on for several minutes before Otto came out, still dressed in his union suit. He unceremoniously plopped down at the table and thanked her for the food. The two of them starting to eat as Oscar finally emerged. Otto looked behind him, now registering that the youngest had come from the second level of the house.

" _ **We agreed you would sleep on the couch. This is a nice woman, why would you deprive her of her own bed?**_ " Axel asked lowly as soon as Oscar took his seat at the table. Otto looked between his brothers, putting two and two together and disappointedly glared at Oscar as if to say ' _how could you'?_

" _ **I didn't! She was with me**_." He defended. Both brothers stared at him with this admission. Otto's eyes looking back at Primrose, a look that she didn't notice as she finished plating Oscar's breakfast.

" ** _You two... shared a bed?_** " Otto asked slowly with a crestfallen expression.

" ** _I've been winning a lot of games recently, no?_** " He challenged him with a smirk. Otto sat up straighter as if he was going to jump out of his chair to lunge at his brother. Oscar squared his shoulders, bracing for it.

Axel cleared his throat as she turned back to the table to give Oscar his omlette, oblivious to the conversation. The two reluctantly slouched back into their seats, then just as every other morning she took her own cup of black coffee, bowl of cut fruit, and a book and stepped into the backyard to give them some privacy.

" _ **You-**_ " He pointed his knife at Otto, " ** _must stop staring at her with puppy dog eyes all day. And you-_** " he pointed to Oscar gritting his teeth slightly more, " ** _need to keep it in your pants. She is part of a protection mission, and nice woman, not a game for you to win._** "

The three finished their meal in silence. While their heads were turned downward toward their respective plates, Oscar and Otto simultaneously glanced up to share a look, both of them finding it interesting how Axel referred to her as a _nice woman_ not only once, but two times. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe my loves, and remember that somewhere out there someone loves and cherishes your presence in the world.  
> I made a tumblr (the-swedes-knees) pretty much for the sole purpose of talking about these boys, message me any time! 
> 
> Edit: Some slight modifications might happen with this chapter, as I'm still not super happy with it.


	6. Chapter 6

" _How is he?_ " _T_ _he man in the scuba-suit asked his colleague that was inspecting the limp body on the ground, freshly mauled the the Creature._

" _He's dead._ "

Oscar and Primrose chuckled at the same time in response to the deadpan delivery of the line. While a ghost of a smile was present on Axel's stoic face, Otto still seemed tense.

Earlier on in the evening Oscar had been flipping through the television channels until he stumbled upon an airing of _The Creature of the Black Lagoon_. Being a fan of horror, she was eager to make popcorn and settle herself in the middle of the couch next to him. Otto was next to join them, sitting next to her on the other end of the couch. Before long Axel reluctantly took a seat in the armchair to watch the movie.

It was nice how she didn't need to hide her honest reactions around them. A true person of this time would most likely be terrified of the on-screen monsters and violence, but what she grew up with made these old films borderline corny.

When the Creature had first emerged from the water and the dramatic music swelled she could tell that Otto was uncomfortable, so she leaned against him and offered him popcorn. 

In response he had draped his arm around her shoulders, occasionally squeezing her wrist as scenes became loud and flashy.

Otto was _very_ warm. That warmth drew her in closer, lulling her into a sense of relaxation as she leaned into his chest. Oscar had been quick to retaliate against the created distance by sweeping her legs up to rest on top of his, languidly stroking the calf of her cigarette pants throughout the movie as if she were one of the cats. 

If it weren't for the jarring music she could have easily fallen asleep like that, sprawled out on the couch between the two men. 

"Why will she not run?" Otto scowled as the damsel in distress tripped over thin air while the monster stalked toward her.

"Because the big men with the guns have to save her, of course." She said sarcastically, tossing another handful of popcorn into her mouth. "Or maybe she secretly likes the idea of fish-monster sex."

"Will the babies be small fish monsters? Or one-half?" Oscar asked as if he were seriously thinking about it.

"Good question." 

"Shhhhhh!" Axel hushed from the side. Oscar and Primrose shared an impish smile while struggling not to laugh. He slightly nodded his head toward the bowl in her lap and opened his mouth wide. She tossed a piece of popcorn in the air which he caught with ease. 

There was a timid knock at the door, the three men tensed and looked at each other while Primrose eyed the clock. It wasn't late, but certainly past a reasonable hour for social calls. She placed the bowl in Otto's lap and smoothed out the creases in her pants as she stepped over to answer the door. 

"Eric!" She greeted the young man with a lilt of surprise in her tone. Her eyes immediately dropped to the contents in his hands. "What can I do for you at this hour?"

"Good evening, Huā. My parents had a new flower shipment come in for the store. I thought they would look nice in your living room." He all but shoved the modest bouquet of flowers into her arms before seeming to realize he was carrying another bag. "Oh! And fresh oranges."

She tried her best to keep a level smile in the midst of her confusion.

"How... thoughtful! I would invite you in but I have guests staying with me."

"Ah, yes, a-ma mentioned. _Gwailou._ " The brothers didn't like the way her lips formed a thin line at the word they did not know. Eric seemed to stumble over his words and gestured around the street with his hands. "The, er, air is nice out tonight... would you like to walk around the block with me?"

She could already feel that it was a bit too chilly out for her liking, especially after leaving the heat of the two men currently starting at her from the couch. But he had come all this way, it would be rude to say no.

That, and he was acting strange. Nervous, almost to the point of nauseous. There must have been something terribly important on his mind. 

"Sure, I'll be out in a second, let me just place these in some water." She shut the door and carried the cut flowers to the kitchen, setting the citrus on the counter and filling a vase with water.

"I'll be back in a few." She called out to the boys, placing the vase on the side table where Axel was sitting. She gestured toward the cats, "Make sure they don't knock it over."

Axel grabbed her arm lightly as she went to walk past him. She took a step backward to face him, gently shaking her head at the look of warning.

"It's just around the block. If anything happens, you'll hear me scream bloody murder." She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and he reluctantly let go. They pretended to turn their attention back to the television and listened to the sounds of her heels click against the floor and the front door shut. 

Otto immediately turned the volume almost all the way down while Oscar reached behind the couch to leave a small crack in the blinds at the same level as his eyeline. 

Axel had been keeping an eye on the clock. Seven minutes later the pressure in his chest lifted when he heard hushed tones talking back and forth in Chinese.

" _Māmā yào wǒ jià gěi yīgè zhōngguó nǚhái_." It was difficult to distinguish if the man's tone was frantic, or if it was just the dictation of the language itself. " _Dàn wǒ xiǎng jiàngdī duì nǐ de biāo zhǔn_."

" _Biāo zhǔn a?_ " She sounded shocked, voice much louder than his. The scoff that she made was universally understood, followed by the sharp clicking of heels moving closer to the house.

" _Nǐ zhǐyǒu yībàn_." Oscar eyes turned dark as he watched the man grabbed her hand to keep her from leaving. " _Wǒ kěyǐ yuánliàng nǐ. Wǒ zuò chū nàgè xīshēng_."

"I wouldn't want you to make that _sacrifice_ for my sake." She said bitterly, pulling her hand away from his grasp. Adrenaline rushed through her as she swung the door open and stepped inside the house. "Goodnight."

As she moved to close the door Eric's hand flew up to stop it. She flinched at the loud noise and sudden action, which was wholly uncharacteristic of the timid man she had assumed him to be.

"You're a selfish woman." He berated. Her entire body seized at his words. Breathing became difficult and her vision began to swirl. "That's why you'll always be alone."

Eric's disgusted expression faltered as his eyes traveled upwards. She hadn't noticed Otto move from the couch, now standing at his full height behind her. The Swede barely moved his head to look at the man's hand on the door before meeting his eyes. 

The message was clear.

His hand dropped down to his side. Primrose took a shaky breath and turned her gaze to her feet.

Her mouth opened and shut a few times. But there were things she shouldn't say, things she _couldn't_ articulate as tears pricked in her eyes.

" _Goodnight_ , Eric." She repeated with dignity and coldness before shutting the door.

Primrose kept her eyes down as she sidestepped Otto to walk further into the house. She was aware that they were staring at her, but didn't care. She needed to calm down, get some air, as she grabbed a bottle of vodka and a shot glass before making her way to the back porch

Otto reflexively moved to follow her but paused midstep and looked to the eldest. Axel gestured with his head toward the back door in approval and watched his brother cross the living room in a hurried pace.

Axel quickly scooped up a cat that attempted to jump onto the table with the vase. The creature initially resisted his hold but came to relax as he brought it closer to his chest. His fingers firmly stroked its underbelly as he looked back at the flowers coldly. 

Oscar moved to grab his gun but Axel shook his head. He had to reestablish boundaries, remember the initial rules of the house. This was her own business. And if she wasn't in danger they wouldn't interfere.

He could justify the wife beater, she herself had so blatantly insinuated that the other woman commit the deed. 

But she didn't need to know about the cop.

_And his brothers didn't need to know how much satisfaction he gained in killing for her._

* * *

"Can I sit?" Otto asked softly. 

She didn't turn around to face him, but nodded. She should of figured that one of them would follow her, she could never be alone anymore in her own house. The metal chair legs screeched against the ground as he dragged it next to hers. 

He lowered himself into the seat. Despite attempting to hide her face in her hand, the wet streaks from her face shined dully in the street lights. 

"What did he say?" She wiped her face and poured another shot from the open bottle. She threw her head back as she swallowed it, grimacing slightly at the burn.

"It's not important." She muttered while shaking her head back and forth. 

"Yes, it is." He insisted and grabbed her wet hand. Her reaction time was slow, and for a moment just dumbly stared at their joined hands.

The greatest sense of tenderness filled Otto's heart as she began to cry harder. He watched as her neck muscles convulsed as she so obviously did not want to make a sound, but heavy tears fell from her face. He had always seen her as calm, collected, cheerful... at times she looked cold and calculating, but never shaken.

He had no experience with crying women. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, lift her into his arms and carry her back inside. But he knew that he was bull headed, and his intuitions were usually wrong. The fear of making her feel worse tightened like a vice on his heart. 

"I don't want your pity, Otto." She finally said, voice wavering slightly with every word. "And I didn't need you to step in, like the only reason he should walk away is because he was stepping on the toes of another man."

He didn't know what to say. All his life, he hadn't been very good with words. Did she want an apology?

He wouldn't apologize for standing at her side, he didn't regret that. 

"I do not pity you."

Primrose couldn't help but look up at him, even if just for a moment. She was sure she looked a mess, people had always told her that she was an ugly crier... among other things.

_Selfish_

_Heartless_

_Dirty_

_Selfish_

_Disgraceful_

**_Selfish_ **

"I'm sorry. I didn't expect to get this worked up, I swear I'm not usually like this."

Primrose closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wasn't used to talking to people about her problems, save the cats. But their advice was stodgy at best.

"I'm just... dense. I guess." She admitted, using her free arm to wipe her tears away with her sleeve. "He's _interested_ in me for whatever reason, you see, but can't wait around any longer for a half girl."

Otto showed confusion, holding his hand out as if to signify short height. She couldn't help but giggle at the assumption, shaking her head no.

"Half Chinese." She continued to smile with her lips pressed thinly together. "There aren't many Chinese girls in Dallas, you see. And most families aren't keen on mixing."

In some twisted way she could consider herself fortunate to tread on the line of a more Caucasian appearance. To most she looked ethnically ambiguous, with some people like that one cop able to notice if they looked at her long enough. Other Chinese people were much quicker to recognize the features, but were still surprised when she was able to speak the language ( _she was barely fluent, but it was enough to get by_ ).

She had learned some makeup techniques in shading to further enhance those features, all in the effort to be passing for white. She couldn't argue that it made life in the era much simpler. Hell, Asian Americans weren't even legally allowed to own land in Texas yet, and wouldn't be able to until the Immigration Act of 1984. 

"But he would _lower his standards_ , for me." She repeated his unknowingly harsh words, using her free hand to do air quotations. She released her hand from his to pour another shot of vodka and screwed the cap of the bottle shut. She stared blankly ahead as she slowly sipped. "Isn't that charming?"

When she looked back at him he used his hands to make a strangling gesture. She scoffed and slapped his arm.

"Don't you dare. I mean it." She warned with a half-smile. "You all get to leave soon... but this, these people are my life now."

It wasn't as if the attitudes were different than her own time. The Commission had been the only place that was mostly free from any sort or prejudice. Race, gender, sexuality, age... it took diversity and open minded people to do what needed to be done to maintain the timeline. 

"Do you have any idea what it's like to have people pray, actually _pray_ to their God that you don't marry their son?" She continued to rant without purpose, emotions that had lay dormant now bubbling to the surface. "Because heaven forbid the kids might look like me."

" _Ja_." She looked at him in surprise. He gestured to himself, recalling the ridicules and stares that had plagued him since his youth in the small fishing village. " _Draugen..._ a big monster, ghost of the sea."

Otto felt like he could tell her anything. He liked her attention, he would do anything to make her smile. She was patient with him, with all of them. 

"Well that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in my life." She huffed out, as if personally offended. "And I used to work for a goldfish."

If any person of sound mind could look at Otto, or any of the brothers and not find them devilishly handsome, she didn't dare imagine what she looked like. 

"We work for the goldfish." She laughed again. 

" _Jag älskar ditt leende_." He admitted, knowing she wouldn't understand the meaning behind his words. "Your smile, is nice."

" _Wǒ xǐhuān nǐ de yǎn jīng._ " She replied flirtatiously, "I like your eyes."

She wanted to say that his eyes were blue, but every time she saw them up close they swirled and changed with hues of grey and green.

His eyes, his handsome face was close, _too close,_ she could feel his hot breath fanning her cold nose. In embarrassment she darted her eyes away and leaned back further into the chair. 

She was a fool, a drunk, horny, fool.

"I- erm I guess, I think I'm mostly mad at myself, for letting it bother me." She admitted, her nervous habit rearing its head once again as she tugged at the chain of her necklace. "I don't care if no other man wants me, I can't stand the thought of a loveless marriage."

"Other men want you." Otto took her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm, holding her hand against his face. His eyes were closed, kissing her palm again before letting go and standing up. It would be inappropriate to stay here with her any longer while she was in such a state. He took the vodka bottle from the small table. "I take this with me. _Godnatt_."

"Otto?" He stopped, "Can I hug you?"

He nodded, watching in anticipation as she rose from the chair and closed the short distance between them. Her arms were barely able to fully wrap around his mid-section, face pressed into the middle of his chest. He wasn't sure what to do with his arms and settled for wrapping one around her shoulders, like he had earlier on the couch.

He felt her chuckle against him as she nuzzled her face deeper into him.

"I can hear your heart."

" _Ja._ " He pressed his large hand onto her back, holding her more firmly against him. Through her jacket he could feel it fluttering, so full of life. " _Jag känner också din._ "

"Rose." Oscar called out while opening the back door. His eyes softened as he watched her and his brother reluctantly release their embrace. "I want to finish the movie."

"You can keep watching without me." Primrose waved her hand in front of her. She was half in the mind to continue sitting out here alone with her thoughts, but talking with Otto had lifted her spirits more than any alone time could accomplish.

She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve again to dry the lingering tears. There was no point in hiding the fact that she had been crying, but Oscar had the grace to pretend like there was nothing wrong.

"Eh, is less fun." He grabbed her hand and pulled her away from his brother. He turned around and smirked at Otto as he pressed his hand to the small of her back to guide her back into the house. Oscar froze has she reciprocated his touch and leaned into him heavily, holding onto him as much as he did her.

The anger that had been stewing inside of him thinking about the other man and ways to make him suffer all but vanished. He looked back at the bottle in Otto's hand, silently communicating with his brother. 

_How much did she have?_

_Not sure, but enough._

They had been so involved with one another in anticipating who would make a first move that they hadn't considered other people. The brothers' eyes steeled as they came to the same conclusion, an agreement.

No one in Dallas, or even the whole country could know her or appreciate her like they did. 

She belonged with them, and they would do anything to keep it that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stop by my Tumblr (the-swedes-knees) to say hi or talk about the boys anytime <3
> 
> Translations:  
> Māmā yào wǒ jià gěi yīgè zhōngguó nǚhái. Dàn wǒ xiǎng jiàngdī duì nǐ de biāo zhǔn. - Mother wants me to marry a Chinese girl, but for you I can lower my standards  
> Nǐ zhǐyǒu yībàn. Wǒ kěyǐ yuánliàng nǐ. Wǒ zuò chū nàgè xīshēng. - You are only half. I can forgive that, I can make that sacrifice
> 
> Jag älskar ditt leende - I love your smile  
> Jag känner också din - I know yours as well


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: NSFW Oscar! (there will be separation bars for those that don't want to read smut), Strong Language

The throbbing headache that greeted Primrose the next morning was a sore reminder that she couldn't drink like a young twenty-something anymore. 

And the way that her drunken-self had chosen to tightly curl her body around the second pillow that faintly carried Oscar's scent indicated it was time to change the sheets. 

For once she was thankful to wake up without the three men there, as every noise in the house was amplified tenfold. She poured herself a mug of coffee that one of them must have made prior to leaving. Lukewarm, but still good enough. 

At first she blamed the hangover for the unfamiliar noises from the open window. But as light shuffling morphed into a drawn-out hiss, she grabbed the hidden baseball bat from behind the refrigerator and bolted out the back door. 

"Hey!" 

There was a single moment where she looked at the faces of the two young men before they threw the can of spraypaint to the ground and started running to jump the fence, a mixture of laughing and cursing following them. She only made it a couple of steps before dropping her pursuit.

"I know where you _live_ , Danny!" She yelled after their retreating forms, the threat only causing them to laugh louder. She huffed, regarding the bat in her hand in displeasure. Of course they would take one look at her and find it funny, she wasn't even holding the damn thing right. Reluctantly she turned her head to the side of the house to assess the damage.

Her heart dropped at the large, capital letters that had been scrawled in bright red paint. She should have known better than this, been _smarter_ about this... what was she thinking? Openly speaking Chinese so loudly in her own neighborhood. What had clearly been intended as a 't' wavered mid-stroke and was most likely cut off from when they were caught, but _that_ word wasn't the one that made her physically shake.

_COMMIE CUN/_

Primrose couldn't think of a worse message to besmirch her house during the thicket of the Cold War. This would have to be dealt with _immediately,_ lest a random FBI agent or officer see it and decide to look closer. 

While retirees weren't eligible for Commission removal it was doubtful that she would be lent any aid from the law, especially after the Swedes completed their assignment.

 _They'll be leaving soon, won't they..._ The very thought, along with the lingering paint fumes, instantly put a bad taste in her mouth.

She raised one hand to cover her nose while the other went to loosen the collar of her dress-

_Clink!_

Her body seized as the gold chain fell loose around her neck. Still shaking, she pulled the necklace out and inspected the O-ring that had finally stretched out from her excessive nervous tugging. 

She didn't believe in an afterlife, or ghosts for that matter... but this string of rotten luck sure _felt_ like a vindictive haunting. Even if ghosts did exist, it seemed like it would take quite a large grudge to bother sticking around for several years, or follow her through time for that matter.

She tossed the rings in the kitchen drawer and slammed it shut in frustration. 

_Was it really that selfish of her? To pursue happiness?_

A few cats must have sensed her distress and proceeded to gather around her legs, mewling and rubbing their soft bodies against her with affection they rarely showed. She allowed herself to sink to the ground and gently pat their heads as they crawled on top of her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling much more grounded with the silent companionship. 

No. She refused to spiral out of control... she just had to remember, _xian le piao piao..._

There was work to be done, and calls to be made.

* * *

The Dallas sky had begun to turn a hue of muted orange as the Swedes walked up the block to the house, having parked the van a few blocks away out of precaution. All these extra steps, knowing that for the first time there were real consequences of their safehouse being discovered even after their departure, was starting to take a toll. But when Axel saw her, standing in the yard in casual denim jeans and a sensible button down blouse, he knew in his heart that it was worth it. 

When she finally noticed them her stern expression softened and gave a small wave. 

"Hi boys! There's lemonade inside if you want any."

"You got other men living here and got _us_ cleaning your walls?" A disgruntled male voice sneered, giving the Swedes pause. 

"If _they_ make a mess, they clean up after themselves. That's what real men do." She quipped back in an even tone. "I can still read it, by the way."

Axel jutted his chin toward the front door and Oscar and Otto entered the house. He, on the other hand, walked around the corner of the house and through the gate to stand beside her in the yard. She kept her eyes fixed ahead at the boys as they continued to scrub the half-faded message away with a mixture of acetone, but the uneven surface finish of the concrete wall allowed the paint to nestle into the many nooks and crannies. 

"Problem?"

"I'm fine. Just go inside." He loomed over her a moment longer, carefully watching her breath hitch sharply and posture sag. Still not meeting his eye, she turned her head toward him and whispered, "Please."

That same, unfamiliar weight in his gut grew heavier as he compiled with her request. He walked entered the house through the back door with a few long strides, giving a pointed glare to the two lanky boys before shutting the door behind him. 

Just as he contemplated taking over the roll of preparing supper, the scent of a slow-roasted stew wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Even when dealing with her own issues, she found a way to prioritize their needs it seemed. He uncovered a large enamel pot that was left on the counter and picked up one of the potatoes within. It was cool to the touch and pliable in his hand, a few stab marks indicating it was tested for doneness. Without a second thought he shrugged off his outer layers and slipped the nearby apron over his head. The very least that he could do was finish the meal.

" _ **She looks mad.**_ " Oscar commented while picking up one of the cats. He held the squirming creature close to his chest and stared blankly at the wall, curious what was happening on the other side. " _ **Shame,** **I was hoping to share her bed again.**_ " Otto pulled the hunting knife from his pocket and hurled it towards Oscar, the blade impaling itself in the floorboard squarely between his feet. Axel glanced at his brothers from the kitchen and shook his head lightly.

" _ **Do not cause her grief for the sake of amusing yourself**._" He lectured while beginning to cut the potatoes open. Usually they didn't care what the youngest did in his spare time, but Oscar never made an effort to hide his habit of taking certain _breaks_ during work.

What he wouldn't give to be like his brother... able to live in the moment. 

" _ **We just slept. Don't go giving yourself more wrinkles now.**_ " He leaned down to pick the knife from the floorboards, turning it over in his hand as he spoke. " ** _It's just good fun to see you two so riled up._** "

Axel opened the cutlery drawer for a spoon, but paused mid-reach as he noticed something that didn't belong.

" ** _She's a widow._** " Axel muttered, the garish jewelry that refracted into shattered beams of light a cold reminder to even himself. Oscar pursed his lips and this new information and raised an eyebrow.

" ** _Charming, so she is free._** " Axel slammed the drawer shut, startling the cat in Oscar's free arm. 

" ** _Her life is messy, this assignment is kicking our asses, and I'm the only one who seems to care._** "

" _ **Bad timing.**_ " Otto breaks the tense silence that follows. His hands find their way to grip at his suspenders as he shrugs. " _ **It's just another assignment.**_ "

* * *

" _What_ are you doing?" Primrose harshly whispered from the stair landing, looking back and forth between the man sitting on the couch and the hunting knife that had been thrown halfway across the living room. He was silent as he watched her move further into the room to pick up the knife. "I'd appreciate it if you don't destroy my house as well."

"Why reward them?"

The question caught her off guard. She had been emotionally exhausted after the whole vandalism ordeal... but reflecting back toward dinner Oscar had been uncharacteristically cold. And now in the muted light of lamp she could see that he was openly scowling into the empty space in front of him.

It wasn't as if she had done much, just sent the boys on their way with a fresh baked loaf of rosemary bread each. After warning them that next time she would do more than tattle to their parents, they begrudgingly apologized, and that was that. 

_Xian le piao piao._ It happened, she moved forward. 

"Their mothers will discipline them as they see fit. They cleaned up after their own mess, and the rest of my wall as well so they deserved a reward." She dislodged the knife from the floorboard, running her thumb over the collection of shallow indents that all landed within the same square inch of each other. She set the weapon on the kitchen table next to Oscar's pistol, then crossed her arms and shrugged. "Kill them with kindness."

"Why are _you_ so _mad_ about this?" She countered.

" _Jag kommer att döda alla som visar dig respektlöst_." She nervously watched as he clenched and unclenched his fists several times. She brought herself to sit on the edge of the coffee table opposite of him and placed her hands on top, prompting him to look up.

"You are... too nice." His accent was thicker than normal, the emotions bubbling to the surface making it difficult to speak freely.

"You say that like it's a bad thing." She teased, but the smile fell from her face as Oscar's expression only soured. _Ok, serious talk, then_... Her eyes screwed shut in concentration as she recalled historical details from the recesses of her brain.

"In 1990, Valentines Day, I think, the US is going to launch a huge probe into space, and it's going to take a photograph of Earth from 3.7 billion miles away." He quirked an eyebrow as she continued to talk. "When the image was first printed, a technician tried to wipe away what she thought was a piece of dust, but it was actually a one pixel image of the Earth."

"That photograph made people realize just how small each of their lives are. Every man, woman, and child that had ever been, just one pixel in the universe." She smiled sadly, running her thumbs across his fingers. "That's how I felt after I started working at the Commission. I understood that nothing mattered, not really. No matter what time we wake up in the morning, how much money we have, who we love, it doesn't matter. Time will go on..." She shrugged, "and if nothing matters, why shouldn't I be nice?"

He scoffed at the sentimental reasoning, which did nothing to lessen his true deep-seeded insecurity. 

"Nothing matters?" He repeated her words and turned his head to look toward the hallway where his brothers were sleeping.

He didn't want her to treat everyone with the same kindness she had shown them. If she did, that meant it wasn't special...

She patted his knee as she began to rise from the table, and in a last second decision to make peace leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. As she did so he turned his head quickly, catching her lips for just a brief moment. She flinched back, surprised.

Confidently his hands reached up to cradle her face, guiding her back down. Her eyes fluttered closed as his chapped lips met hers again, firmer this time as his thumbs stroked her face. He snickered as she experimentally bit his bottom lip and bit her back harder, almost enough to draw blood before roughly exploring her mouth with his tongue. How long the two of them sat there, mapping mouths and basking in the sounds of each other's labored breathing, they weren't exactly sure.

She broke the kiss with a hiss of pain, both of them now staring down at the cat who had decided this moment was the perfect time to bite at her toes. 

"Do you want to go upstairs?" 

* * *

  
She had never seen Oscar move so fast, slinging her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing at all. She laughed and lightly slapped his back in protest as he bounded up the stairs two at a time. He turned the corner into the bedroom too sharply in his excitement, causing her elbow to harshly bang against the doorframe. 

She felt the springs creak under her as her back hit the mattress, bouncing up and down as Oscar stepped back to close the door, the sound of the barely used lock _click_ into place is sinful enough in itself. He paused for a moment to raise her arm and press a kiss into her newly bruised elbow before crawling onto the bed.

"Do you want me?" She could feel his breath fan across her lips as he loomed over her, caging her, but not yet touching. She closed the distance by cupping his face, tucking the fine hair of his bangs behind his ear and pulling him down into a desperate kiss. 

"Yes... god, yes." She whispered breathlessly against his lips. He groaned as her hand reached down to stroke his prominent erection through his pants. "I think you want me, too."

" _När jag såg dig behövde jag göra dig till min_." He chuckled, the most wonderful grin spreading over his face. The look in his eyes wasn't cruel or mischievous, it's desperate, tender, and adoring. He straightens himself up on the bed and tosses his shirt off to the side, offering her a view of his perfectly toned torso. She suddenly felt self-conscious, looking up at this man whos body rivaled those of marble sculptures, flawless and intimidating. 

All her doubts are quickly pushed from her mind as his hands wandered to her chest. She gasped as he tore her shirt open as if it were made of paper, buttons flying across the room. A part of her wanted to scold him, but she couldn't deny that it was so fucking hot. Their mouths connected once again as he palmed her breast and pushed the remaining fabric off her shoulders, meanwhile her own fingers gently grazed every dip and curve of his body, lingering on healed, raised scar tissue that littered his chest. 

Oscar pulled away, the adoring look now bordering on feral as he slowly crawled backwards on all fours, his eyes never leaving hers as his fingers hooked the elastic waistband of her pajamas and dragged them down her legs.

" _Så liten_ ," He firmly gripped her ankle and raised it to his lips, continuing to whisper sweet nothings in Swedish as his fingers and lips traveled up her legs. 

" _Så söt_ ," Giving into his impulses he harshly bit into the tender flesh of her inner thigh, earning a muffled squeal as her body jerked.

" _Perfekt_." He pressed a heated kiss against her soaked panties, she whimpered and pathetically bucked her hips against him. 

Then he's back on top, pressing kisses across her face and removing her underwear. He supports himself with one arm while his other hand fumbles with the button of his trousers. He's quick to pull them down, leaving the fabric to pool at his knees as he shifted his hips to line up with hers.

"Scared, _jordviva_?" He asks, sensing her sudden hesitance as she stares at his hardened length, already weeping with precum. 

"Sorry I just..." She tried to choose her words carefully to not offend him. "I've never seen one... _uncut_ before."

"I am your first?" 

"Don't say it _like that_..." She struggled to form words as he rubbed the head of his cock against her slick entrance. 

Tears immediately pricked in her eyes as he snapped his hips forward, pushing in completely. A mixture of pleasure and pain pooling in her gut at being split open so suddenly. It had been _so long_ since her last, but still remembered how every other intimate encounter would mock her pain and continue at an awkward and unsatisfying pace. She averted her eyes in shame, heart hammering in her chest in anticipation for Oscar to tease her as well.

Instead, he shushed her softly, rubbing the tears from the corner of her eyes and kissed her forehead. He grunted and she felt his cock twitch with thinly veined restraint inside of her, but he stayed fully seated, unmoving as he rubbed her side.

"You need slow?" He whispered against her forehead, and she nodded. He leaned back to look at her with fondness before dipping down to capture her lips. She circled her arms around him, fingers trailing in featherlight touches that painfully remind him to be gentle as he began rocking his hips with slow, shallow thrusts. 

Even at the languid speed, her walls contracted dangerously against his length. She felt so very _full_ and _complete,_ having Oscar's cock nestled inside of her while he stared down with a hungry gaze. 

It didn't take much for a new burning sensation to take over her body, a need, that same hunger for _more_.

She hooked a leg over him and ground into him, eliciting a sharp hiss of pleasure from the Swede. They looked at each other with an unspoken understanding, and he didn't need any more encouragement before pulling back and snapping his hips against hers with more fervor. 

She whimpered against her own hand as he continued pounding her into the bed at a relentless, eager pace. Her whole body was on fire from the way he dipped down to repeatedly attacked the same spot of sensitive skin with his teeth. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as he slowly dragged his wet tongue along her abused neck.

"Fuck I'm close... fuck..." He relished the sound of her broken voice. Every laugh, every moan, every little slip that made her drop the mask of a stiff, put-together, perfect woman. It's her, and raw, and real, and it's just for him.

Oscar hissed at the sight of her hand going between their bodies to provide the needed friction to bring her over the edge. He hooked one hand behind her knee and dug the other one into her hip, raising her body to hit a new, deeper angle.

" _Jag alskar dig_." He said with conviction as he looked into her hazed, lust-filled eyes. 

"Ahhhh- ahh!" Screams spilled out of her mouth as white hot pleasure shot through her spine. Silver specs swirled in her vision as she watched Oscar's face. His lips were tightly pursed, cheeks puffed as she convulsed around his cock. 

He felt his legs tremble as his rhythm became erratic, the sound of his hips slapping into hers as she came undone underneath him bringing him over the edge. He didn't even recognize the strangled moan leaving his own lips as he buried himself as deep as he could go, finishing within her. 

He stayed on top of her for a few moments, both of them lost in the afterglow. He rolled over and lay on his back, finally kicking his pants completely off his legs before wrapping his arm around her. She moved into him, laying her head on his chest and draping an arm across stomach.

* * *

"Good?" He asked, breathing still a bit ragged.

"The best." She responded drowsily. She could already feel herself drifting off to sleep-

_BANG_

Her whole body flinched in surprise as the bedroom door was kicked open, the flimsy lock ripped from the the wooden frame. She scrambled to cover herself while Oscar barely reacted, only turning his head towards the door to look at his brother.

" _ **Something wrong?**_ " He quirked an eyebrow and watched his brother's expression shift from wild, determined, rage to mild annoyance as he understood just what exactly he had barged in to. 

" _ **I... heard her scream.**_ " Axel said lowly as he lowered his gun. 

A tired growl clawed it's way from his throat as he drank in sight of her. The thin sheet did little to protect her modesty, clinging to her curves and hardened nipples. His eyes darkened some as he examined her face, dazed, flushed, and now burning from embarrassment as she kept her own eyes fixed on the foot of the bed, afraid to regard him. 

" _ **Yes, she did.**_ " Oscar replied smugly. He yawned and leaned back further into the pillow, closing his eyes. " _ **Now if you don't mind, I think she is too tired for a second round.**_ "

"Sorry." Axel said coldly in English before exiting the room, shutting the door behind him.

"Is he going to kill me?" She whispered, even in the darkness Oscar could see how all the color had drained out of her face.

He almost wanted to laugh, and wondered what her reaction would have been if she had looked up and seen how strained Axel's white briefs had become. Oh, _he was pissed alright_ , but not at her.

"No. I will protect you from big, bad Axel." He reassured with a smile and took the sheet from her clenched fist, joining her underneath. 

"What did you say, at the end?" Her voice lulled in the darkness, her mind finally breaking out of the haze of pleasure. "Ya aska day?" He snorted at the butchered pronunciation, and at how she repeated the phrase without knowing the meaning.

" _Jag alskar dig_." Oscar repeated with fondness, running his fingers through her hair and kissed her crown.

"So? What does that mean?" He placed a finger on her lips and leaned back into the pillow.

"Shhhhh... sleepy time is now." 

"It's a good thing you're pretty." She grumbled, laying her cheek against his chest that was vibrating with laughter. 

It wouldn't be long until his brothers came for her now, but this was a new game that he was more than willing to play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Xian le piao piao - whatever will be, will be  
> Jag kommer att döda alla som visar dig respektlöst - I will kill anyone who shows you disrespect  
> När jag såg dig behövde jag göra dig till min - When I saw you I needed to make you mine  
> Så liten, Så söt, perfekt - so small, so cute, perfect  
> Jag alskar dig - I love you


	8. Chapter 8

She slowly opened her eyes, blinking away the residuals of what was arguably the best night of sober sleep she had in years. With a soft groan, she rolled onto her opposite side toward the center of the bed. She couldn't help but yelp in surprise as she turned directly into Oscar's chest... her face immediately flushed as she recalled the night before.

Her dark eyes flicked upward to meet his face, which was held propped up by one arm. It looked as if he had been in that position for a while, simply watching her with an amused lopsided smile.

" _God morgon, sötis_." His deep voice was hoarse from disuse. He let out a long sigh and used his free hand to brush the long strands of hair over her bare shoulder.

"Hi." She held the comforter against her chest as she began to sit up, only to be gently pushed back down with a heavy kiss. Her mouth opened automatically to his invading tongue, their teeth scraping lightly as he readjusted himself on top. She could feel the smile on his lips as he swallowed her light giggles. 

"What is funny?" He muttered, pressing his nose against her cheek.

A comfortable silence hung in the air as she lazily snaked her hands up the arms that were caging her, intermediately squeezing the muscled flesh as if to confirm that he was real. She carefully raked her fingers through his wild hair, relishing in the sound of the soft groan that left his lips as her short fingernails scraped against his scalp.

While there was always a pull toward the brothers, she had discounted it to a simple crush, a side effect to the lacking dating pool within her own department. If she were to dedicate time to plot a probability model with a matrix inversion lemma to predict how, if ever, she were to be in her current position... her intuition ruled that retiring for the very company they worked for would not be a statistically significant factor.

It was highly improbable to _keep_ interacting with them, or to have formed such a strong connection in a short amount of time. It was a burden off her chest to feel it reciprocated, real and tangible within her fingers. The cervices of her heart that had formally lay heavy with guilt in regards to her attraction were now filled with a new intoxication, wrestling with the idea of just how _normal_ this torrid affair felt. Like it was meant to be.

But Oscar didn’t need to know any of that.

"Your face is scratchy." Is what she said instead, running her thumb across the rough stubble on his chin. There was a moment when she caught the flash of mischief in Oscar's eyes before he pinned her down and rubbed his chin against the length of her cheek. He was relentless as she struggled to push him off, squealing in protest against the sandpaper-like texture against her skin. 

"Shhh, is it your wish to wake my brothers again?"

"Oh god, if you're awake... what time is it?" He allowed her to push him off and rolled onto his back, tucking his hands underneath his head. He bit back another laugh while watching her slight panic as she brought the bedside clock closer to her face, only for her shoulders to sag as she realized that it was still before the time of her usual alarm. He was content to let her think he was a late riser, and not know that he had been awake each morning as she crept down the stairs to prepare breakfast, greedily stealing glances across the living room while her back was turned.

Her reaction to being watched was as delightful as he expected.

"We should get up-" She said begrudgingly, keenly aware that they both were in need of a shower. She shuffled toward the edge of the bed, hesitating to stand while firmly clutching the comforter close to her naked chest. 

"Can you... not look?" Oscar quirked an eyebrow at the request. The content expression on his face fell as he wordlessly placed the second pillow over his eyes, listening to her shuffle around the room and out the door.

* * *

Despite taking only a brisk shower to scrub away the lingering traces of sex, it had taken longer than normal to apply her makeup. As soon as she stepped of the stair landing she was swarmed by the cats, mewling loudly in demand to be fed. She caught a brief glimpse of Axel's figure in the kitchen, noting in the back of her mind that there was something different about him as she retrieved the cat food from the cupboard. Taking a second look she realized why.

_He wasn't wearing pants._

His well-defined back muscles were outlined clearly in the shirt, visible with every slight movement he made. His briefs were the same color, thin white fabric clinging to the firm flesh of his ass but leaving the pale, lithely muscled legs bare. The only speck of color from his combed hair to his socks was the apron strings tied tightly in a bow around his trim waist. 

Among other things, the forefront thought in her mind is that he chose the plain black apron this morning. Had she caught him in this state of undress sporting the pink flowery thing with frills he had worn yesterday while assisting with dinner, she might have been tempted to giggle, perhaps be bold enough to call him _cute_ again, as she had last night. 

" _God morgon, banshee._ " He greeted without turning away from the stove, and good grief she swore she had never heard that tone from him before... husky and dangerous. 

"Ah, yeah, good morning." She fumbled over her words, just knowing that _he knew_ she had been there staring for far too long without saying a word. It took her a moment while filling the pet food bowls to realize the he had called her a nickname in that deep voice, in all honesty whenever they spoke in Swedish her brain defaulted to tuning out as if it were white noise. A new flush of embarrassment spread across her face.

On the other hand, if he was attempting jokes... maybe he wasn't as mad as she had thought?

It would have been _easier_ if Axel's deepest fears had been realized when he kicked down that door, his foggy mind expecting the jilted suitor, the vandalizing youths, a thief of the night that had climbed through her window... if any of those had been the source of her shriek he would have dealt with it swiftly and without mercy. 

It had taken remarkable self control to not wrestle his hedonistic brother out of her bed, if only for the sole purpose to displace his anger on someone deserving. 

Spiteful remarks were met with indifference from Otto, who he had wrongly assumed would be the more sensible sibling. Despite his historic desire to complete jobs as swiftly as possible, even he had begun dragging his feet, excusing for distraction. 

" _ **No good can come of this**_ **.** " Axel spat in the darkness, letting his pistol clatter against the nightstand as he recounted what he had found upstairs.

" ** _What is the bad?_** " Otto slurred through each word between yawns. " _ **Slap**_ ** _on the wrist from management that does not care if we live or die._** "

As the hours passed and the adrenaline in his system faded, so did the seething anger... and all that he was left with as he listened to Otto's heavy breathing was a fizzle of self contempt. Axel found himself unable to sleep the rest of the night, merely staring at the unfamiliar ceiling of her guest room. That accounted for most of their lives, sleeping under and awakening to unfamiliar ceilings, in unfamiliar beds. 

What lay underneath his own eyelids was purely torture, searing images of her nearly naked body of that which he was wholly unworthy of viewing -- to her frightened and pitiful expression, which he _was_ worthy of. 

He had seen that sort of expression countless times in their targets and bystanders alike, even going as far to say he reveled in it when faced with men of weaker constitution. 

_Yet on her face, it was unbearable._

In the light of day, Axel's chest tightened at the soft clattering sounds of her pouring a cup of coffee behind him, grateful that she chose to close the distance between them. He refused to turn around, lest he be met with that fearful expression once more. 

He cleared his throat, catching her attention long enough to gesture his head toward the items on the counter directly next to him. A small bowl full of segmented orange slices, and the necklace he had repaired easily with pliers from her barebones tool box. If it weren't for worry that the cats would eat either or both without his active supervision, he would have left them on the table. 

"Oh, thank you." He watched from the corner of his eye as she wrapped the chain around her hand, deliberately pocketing the jewelry in her skirt instead of adorning it. "I shouldn't have just left valuables laying around like that."

And he understands. Perhaps not completely, but enough to ponder their previous interactions with regret of missed opportunity. 

"I will fix the door."

"Don't bother, I never locked it anyway." She shrugged, and in an unexpected move hopped to sit atop the kitchen counter. He turned his head to regard her, nursing the ceramic mug in one hand and while the other brought another orange slice to her mouth. Her full lips enclosed around the fruit, leaving the slightest trace of red lipstick that she made no attempt to wipe off. 

"Three men, and no lock?"

"Not like it stopped you." She muttered playfully, just loud enough for him to hear as she took another sip from her mug. Despite her attempt to make herself seem larger, more intimidating by bringing herself to be equal to his eyeline, the way she was unable to meet his gaze made Axel's heart ache. Her posture sagged slightly as she stared into the middle distance toward the living room, and he waited as she mulled over her choice of words. "I'm not sorry, about what happened... and I hate poor communication. So I'd rather you just tell me now if you're angry with me."

"No." He answers without hesitation, before turning his attention to adding two eggs to the pan. "Only, surprise."

After appearing to think for a moment the wrinkles around his eyes crinkle in amusement, lips quirked up in a small smile as he let out a low chuckle. Her sheer bluntness was refreshing, a sign that even if _their_ relations would not move forward, it had not moved backward. For now, that was enough.

Primrose couldn't describe the warmth that enveloped her entire body at the sight of Axel so relaxed with her, dare she even say domestic. 

Maybe they were regular men after all, in whatever capacity time travelling assassins could be. 

"That's fair. You must have passed the couch, though."

"He is gone many times-" Axel's face hardens, suddenly realizing that he shouldn't have let that piece of information slip out to a woman that his brother carried affection for. She snorts at his visible discomfort and waves her hand in the air dismissively. 

"Don't worry, I'm well aware." She reaches out and lightly grasps his wrist. He stills under the light touch, her fingertips ghosting up his forearm until they reached their desired destination. She pressed harder just shy of the divot in his elbow until making contact with the small implant that lay underneath his skin. "You can... _infer_ certain behavior from tracking devices. Little things like that factor into evals and such. The three of you were underneath me for _years_ , plenty of data to infer from."

After hearing her own words, she quickly retracted her hand. 

"Managerially speaking, oh god." She buried her face in her hand with shame, trying to rectify her poor choice of wording. "What I'm trying to say is don't worry about hurting my feelings, if you're good, then I'm good." 

"Do you have doubts? About him?" Axel raised an eyebrow, his smirk growing ever a fraction wider at the way her fingers nervously twitched against the mug. "Oscar is... _het på gröten..._ twitchy, annoying."

The tension from her shoulders sagged again after identifying the teasing tone, rolling her eyes and snorting. Her hand made contact with his shoulder in a playful push, but his posture remained sturdy and unmoving. 

"And you're very crabby. Doesn't stop me from liking you too."

His mouth opened to ask for her to elaborate when the familiar sound of a pneumatic tube and metallic clank brought their attention to the kitchen cabinet. As she was the closer of the two of them, she placed her coffee down and shifted her weight to reach over.

"Soft?"

"Pardon?" She asked over her shoulder as she retrieved the canister, noting it was labeled for them.

"Yolks." He indicated toward the pan. "Soft or hard."

"Oh. Soft." She figured that was his way of saying over-easy. 

The sound of the spatula scraping across the pan cut through their silence and she watched him lift the two eggs onto the nearby plate that was already loaded with homemade hashbrowns and buttered toast. It hadn't even crossed her mind that he was actually cooking for _her_ , the bowl of orange slices was already enough of a gesture to warm her heart. She looked over at the drying rack, and saw that two sets of plates and silverware were already cleaned and ready to be put away. 

It had been in the back of her mind yesterday, but now she could clearly see just how comfortable he was in the kitchen. While she solely relied on recipe cards, books, timers and thermometers, Axel had something of a natural intuition. Or it could be a honed skill... regardless, she struggled to think of a time that someone had made a meal _just_ for her. 

The gas of the stove shuts off with an audible _pop_ , and she holds out the unopened canister to him. For a long moment, his eyes shift between the message and her face and leans closer to place a gloved hand over hers-

And something in his mind clicked.

How it could be as if they knew her all along... or at least the idea of her.

From the recesses of his mind, this smell... _her_ perfume, which was strongest in the mornings... he had known it for years. The familiar sensation breaking the seal of the cold metal tube in his hand followed by warm vanilla prickling at his nose. He could imagine it now, imprinting herself on their messages while her delicate fingers rolled the slips of paper... unintentionally addicting him. 

_But no more_.

When had he begun to notice its absence? He couldn't place a time or place when he had all at once become deprived of it, but he knew it was gone. 

Axel's body moved on its own accord, unashamed in his need to intake it fully. He leaned down and nuzzled his prominent nose into the crook of her neck, unknowingly applying pressure to a sensitive bite mark that had been covered with cosmetics. An involuntary moan slipped through her lips as her entire body trembled in reaction to his unexpected touch. Her free hand fumbled and settled to cling onto one of the apron ties, keeping his body close. 

"Noisy little thing." His voice a deep, visceral growl against her neck. From this proximity she could smell his own aftershave, something sharp, deep and woodsy that kicked up a heat in her stomach. It was that same feeling of intoxication, so dizzying and delightful that the canister slipped from her grip. The sound of it clattering to the ground and rolling across the tile seemingly enough to snap both of them out of whatever trance they were in, Axel pulling away to pick the message from the floor.

His expression returned to that of a stone mask as he read in front of her, keeping the slip of paper and sending the canister back through the tube. 

"Eat, before it is cold." He ordered calmly before removing the apron and disappearing down the hall, leaving her alone to wonder what all that was about.

It was as if her body went on autopilot, eating the meal and now absentmindedly scrubbing the dishes that had been thoroughly cleaned minutes ago. But her mind wasn't quite there, lost in a daze that gnawed at her heart. 

As Oscar was rumored a philanderer, Axel had earned his own reputation as a straight arrow- steady and true, never faltering from a mission objective. So, was it her imagination? Had she become spoiled and leaned into what she knew couldn't be there? 

She barely jumped as a pair of arms wrapped around her waist, those strong hands rubbing circles against her hips now familiar. And just like that she felt grounded and certain. 

"Is better?" Oscar asks, rubbing his freshly shaven face across her cheek. Primrose hums and leans back into his chest.

"Beyond a doubt." She sighs contently before flicking water from the tap directly into his face, causing him to sputter dramatically. His arms fell away to wipe his face with the white sleeves of the milkman uniform. As his brothers emerged from the guest room Oscar took a few purposeful steps away. His steely eyes peered at Axel as he tossed a crumpled piece of paper into the recycling bin before advancing on her with an outstretched hand.

"One week more." Primrose looked up between the brothers and the money before taking it. She began thumbing through the stack, counting and skimming some of the bills and offering them back to him. Axel grew confused.

"If you're late on delivery, you must be getting reduced pay."

"You take all." Axel hesitates, head craning down to scan her face. Was he was looking for, or if he had been satisfied was unknown to her as he squeezed the money against her palm with more force. Either way, he straightens himself and gives his final word on the matter without looking at her. "Job is on schedule."

Hardly a second after Axel turned his back, Oscar wrapped an arm around her waist and tilted her chin up to press a searing kiss that made her flush. The kiss was short lived as Otto forcefully pulled his brother by the scruff of his neck, separating the two. 

Primrose couldn't help but laugh as Oscar tugged at the crooked black bowtie with a pout while rubbing his Adam's apple. As her gaze went to Otto, his eyes had already been on her with a soft expression. He grasped her hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a tender kiss to the pulsepoint of her wrist with hooded eyes, then bringing her hand to rest on his cheek as he took a deep breath.

"I... hope you have a productive day." 

"Thank you, _lilla lamm_." He kissed her knuckles before allowing her arm to fall back down to her side, and practically dragged Oscar out of the house.

* * *

How did that phrase go? _Curiosity killed the cat?_

She had been mulling over the two different interpretations of that saying, wondering whether she should embrace it's original intent or the revised telling that spoke of resurrection after sticking her nose into places it shouldn't be. 

All while toying with the crumbled ball of paper between her hands.

It would be an invasion of privacy, if she were to unfurl the familiar stationary. 

If Axel threw it away it couldn't be terribly important, so what was the harm?

_Did she trust them?_

That was the fundamental question -- the one that scared her the most. 

Obviously she didn't, not enough if she was obsessing over what information _could_ be in her hands. And all of that would be fine a week ago, but their attitudes had changed, her own feelings had started to slip down the terrible slope of wanting _more._

Any relationship without trust just wouldn't do.

Primrose closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair, taking a deep breath and flattening the paper against the kitchen table. Insecurity and her prying nature overtook her instincts, her heart pounding in her chest she looked downward at the clean Courier font.

_**To:** The Swedes _ _**From:** C893467A  
_   
_Ten percent reduction in payment due to job(s) delay. Further reduction every 24 hours until job(s) completion._

"...He lied."

Her body jerked as a series of sharp knocks came from the backdoor, and with frantic hands balled up the note and stuffed it into her skirt pocket. She smoothed out her skirt in hopes to settle her nerves as she stepped over to open the door. 

"Hiya Rosie!" There in her yard stood Sharon holding an angel food cake with both hands and a stack of papers tucked under one arm, pride and happiness practically beaming off of her. She leaned backward a bit to peer at the side of the house before taking in her flustered expression, eyes softening a bit. "I heard about what Patty's son did, you poor thing! You must've been shaken like a lamb!"

"Heard about that already, huh?" Primrose stepped aside and welcomed her in.

"You know what they say, boys will be boys... wonder where they got an idea like that." Though there seemed to be genuine confusion on her face, Primrose found herself crossing her arms almost defensively as she told her premediated lie.

"I like shopping in Chinatown, cheaper than the grocery stores. And even better if you learn the language."

"That seems so like you, learn a whole language to save a nickel on lettuce." 

"What, like it's hard?" She chuckles dryly, making herself busy with preparing some coffee and setting the table with a pair of plates and utensils for the cake. 

"How are your handsome gentlemen fairing?" Primrose's lips pursed slightly, her mind still processing what she should be feeling after reading their message.

"Oh they're... off to work." 

"They found jobs so quickly? Well, then it shouldn't be that hard for me!"

"What are you on about?" She handed Sharon her plate before settling down herself and taking a bite, holding back a moan at just how decadently light and fluffy the texture was.

"Well, I'm a single woman now!" There was a glint in her eye as she spread job clippings and advertisements across the table. "Jimmy used to say that any woman's job was a 'ploy to find a husband.' But... now seems a good a time as any."

Primrose scanned the papers with keen interest, realizing there was more than a little truth to Sharon's words. Renting out the spare room had started as a mistake, an old newspaper ad from the previous owner. It wasn't much, but it did help build a tidy little rainy day fund.

Her severance payments from the Commission were just enough so that she could sustain a frugal life paying off the property taxes and food expenses for her and the cats. But those would only last another few years. Much like the Swedes, it was a nice distraction from real responsibilities, but temporary and fleeting.

Fulltime employment would be the next step, naturally, in fully embracing the decade she was living in. 

And yet... as she considered all the options laid out before her-

"How about a stenographer?" Primrose pondered, "Always need more of those in a big city like this."

"Oh, I don't type so well." 

"Well, there's bookkeeping, office machine operator... not sure about secretary if you don't like to type-"

They all felt _substandard._

There had to be more, _something_ that would just spark in her. She convinced herself that these job listings weren't comprehensive enough and began to flip through the morning's paper.

Her fingers faltered as they felt a skip in the pages, and as she ran her index finger along the ripped seam in the _Local Crime_ section, the pit of mistrust and curiosity twisted in her stomach once more. 

"Oh dear." She turned her head to see that Sharon had opened the backdoor, two slinky cats immediately entering the abode as if they owned the place. "Rosie, I can't believe you lock your critters outside!"

"Wait don't-" She tried to warn before the cat snarled at Sharon's approaching hands, very nearly scratching her. "They're not particularly friendly."

It had been a while since Yī and Wǔ had graced her doorstep, arguably the toughest and most ill-mannered of the bunch. There had been a period when she tried to keep them in the house, but they had made it clear through a series of attacks and howls that they quite liked their lives as strays... and would only seek refuge from one thing.

"Must be a storm coming on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was running long so I separated it into two, and the next one should be out within a week or so. But, anyway, I'm back!
> 
> Thank you so much to all the readers who have left kudos, and an extra big thank you to those who have left such amazingly sweet and supportive comments! 
> 
> Translation:  
> Het på gröten - hot on the porridge (Swedish expression meaning 'too rash, jumping in quickly')


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: NSFW Oscar (again), there are separation bars for the smut

Primrose opened the curtains to her bedroom, taking in the grey overcast that grew darker with the minute. The rain was falling down in sheets at this point, with no clear break in the sky to be seen. 

The rain usually calmed her, but only if she was in it. Now, each drop descended like a bullet against her roof, loud and threatening. 

_The sound of fired shots -- a finger hesitating against the trigger._

_She stands in the doorway, eyes trained on the aimed gun. Helpless, unable to move, a hand tugs her arm --_

She recoiled as a cold hand landed on her shoulder, only to come face to face with Oscar. He was soaked to the bone, white uniform clinging to each line of his body. The indentation of where the milkman hat had been formed a dent in his airy locks, the undone bowtie hanging loosely from the collar of the shirt. 

His face hardened slightly at her reaction and turned his head to peer out the window, but found nothing of interest. He leaned over her to pull the curtains shut, separating them from the outside world. 

"Sorry, I was... thinking." She offered, not expecting for him to believe her. Oscar's face gave nothing away as he stood tall over her, patiently silent and unmoving. Water dripped from his static form, unrhythmically falling to the wood panels of the bedroom floor while his rough thumbs rubbed circles against the backs of her hands. "You're back early."

He gestures outside to the downpour before leaning down and pressing his cool lips to hers in a long, needy kiss. It was slower and more controlled than ones they had shared before, and highly effective in chasing away the remaining tremors of her frightened state. He guided one of her hands to touch the buttons of his shirt- 

"Help me?" 

She gave his hands a firm squeeze before withdrawing herself, sidestepping him and retrieving a towel from the hallway linen closet. They both knew this wasn't what he meant, and it was taking enormous willpower on her part to break away from his comforting touch. 

"Listen, about last night-" She said lowly, unable to look in his eyes as she ran the towel across his wet hair before bringing it to rest along his shoulders. "Thank you... it meant a lot to me. Things haven't been easy lately- not because of you guys, and I guess I forgot what it was like to have fun." 

"Stop this." His expression contorted into a mix of poutiness and confusion as he tilted her head up. "With your face, you should not have sad thinking face."

"Look, I _know_ I'm making your lives more difficult with this mission." She pushed his hand away and took a small step back. At this point the found message lay recrumpled in the trash can as she had found it. "It's not smart to continue."

"We are assassins." Unconsciously, her face prickled in annoyance at being told something she already knew. 

"I know-" 

"If we are thinking too much, we will die." He interrupted, stepping closer and placing his palm flat below her ribcage. "There is a feeling, in here... What is yours feel, for me?"

"I feel like... neither of us are making the best decisions right now."

"No. That is from here-" He insisted, his right hand tapping lightly against her temple while the other pressed harder against her erratic heartbeat. "What is _here_?"

It really was too much to resist, his handsome face and his strong hands against her. In one more moment of weakness she grabbed the ends of the towel to crane his neck down while she rose to stand on her toes. They met in a short, chaste kiss before she pulled away and rested her forehead against his, sighing as she closed her eyes.

"I care for you, all three of you, probably more than I should." In a rare occurrence, unadulterated honesty spilled from her lips. "When you're with me, I don't care about other people, or our obligations to the Commission... but I should. And I feel guilty that I don't."

She owed her life to the Commission, and how could one repay such a lofty debt? Probably not by screwing up their top agents with her own softened heart.

And she wasn't exactly doing _them_ any favors either. She couldn't shake the cold shoulder from Axel, from the lies, the deceit they were forging to pretend like she _wasn't_ a hinderance.

But that's all she was, a blip in their radar...

"So, you want more?" A hopeful smile tugged at his lips, purposefully ignoring all other facets to her argument.

"Oscar, I-" His right hand gently grasped her chin once again, nudging her face up to meet his unrelenting gaze. Even as he leaned down to capture her lips, his eyes stayed open - watching for signs of rejection. Though a bit unnerving, she found it comforting to know that she held his rapt attention, her own eyes fluttering shut and she leaned into the kiss. 

And she knew she was _drowning._ Drowning in him, lungs ingulfed in an unfamiliar fullness. She didn't trust her own voice, all the protests and logic that she had built up within her mind quickly melted away as his hand fiddled with the neckline of her dress.

As she opened her eyes again when he slightly pulled away, his eyes were still open, watching her with that private smile of his.

* * *

"In my way...." He mumbled, his soft lips brushing against hers with each word. In one fluid movement he flicked open a unseen pocket knife and smoothly cut away the threads of the offending hook and eye closure. Her breath hitched at the feeling of the cold metal that lay flat against the back of her neck while Oscar's other hand made way to pull down the zipper. 

His hand runs along her bare shoulders to push the dress off, but in a sudden sense of clarity she crosses her arms over her chest, clutching the bodice to her body. 

"Am I embarrassing to you?" He questions, eyes softening at her discomfort.

"What? Of course not-" 

"There was one here-" She whimpered slightly as his lips pressed against the hidden bitemark, "and here."

Her mind flashes to Axel's touch on that very same spot, his warm breath fanning across her neck. She should have felt ashamed at the powerful reaction her body had to the memory while in the hands of his brother, but somehow it only made her more desperate with need. 

She gave into his firm touch, allowing herself to be led further into the bedroom. He peeled the wet button up shirt from his torso before sitting himself on the edge of the bed. A quirked eyebrow silently encouraging her to join his state of undress.

And she knows that she's done for, openly staring at the man, _dare she say her lover_? The sight of his muscles, slick with rainwater and the white slacks that continue to cling to his toned legs-- with the clear outline of his growing erection straining against the seam of his inner thigh. 

The darkness in his eyes carried the silent promise of _more_ mind-numbing sex, drawing her closer like a butterfly to a forbidden nectar. 

His cold hands run down the length of her back as her dress falls away, joining his shirt halfway across the room. 

"Never hide from me, _blooma_ -" He pleads, positioning his his face close to her breasts, gently pulling her to stand between his parted legs.

“This one is more cute.” Oscar practically purrs, admiring the lacy bra with hooded eyes. He presses gentle open-mouthed kisses to the tops of her breasts. She gasped in shock as he bit down _hard_. His strong hands grip at her waist and hold her steady while he repeatedly attacks her chest like a man possessed.

"W-Wait, you're going to leave marks." The protests were in name only, her traitorous body clinging to him desperately, leaning in for more of the painful pleasure. He leans back and observes his work with a satisfied smile, bright red bruises already darkening against her flesh and her trembling legs that threatened to give out at any moment.

"Good. If they look at you, they know you are mine." 

_They?_

Her mind latches onto that one word, wondering just who else would see her like this... and her head snaps around to be reminded of the _very open_ doorway. 

"Are you crazy? This is dangerous-" She whispered harshly, but made no effort to move from his touch. 

"Dangerous can be fun," he counters, one of his hand dropping to play with the hem of her panties. "do you want to stop?" 

All better reasoning said _yes_ , or to at least close the door, but something about having a strong, confident man toying with her made her mind go positively weak, willing to let go and do whatever he wanted... and she shook her head _no_.

Goosebumps erupted on her skin as he pulled down the waistband of her panties. As the scrap of fabric dropped to the floor, he wasted no time in slipping two fingers deep inside her aching core, eliciting a sharp moan from her. 

"I want to _have fun_ with you the entire day and night." Oscar admitted, watching her face carefully as he pumped inside with more fervor. He wasn't familiar with romance, or commitment for that matter, but convinced himself he could offer something just as good... and he wouldn't stop until she was thoroughly addicted to him.

She whined when he removed his hand, suddenly rising to his feet. He ignored her blatant confusion and pushed her gently onto the bed so that their positions were flipped. Her face flushed as he made a point to show himself slowly sucking his glistening fingers clean, all while maintaining a Cheshire grin. 

She felt like she might just pass out, already being so close to her climax and on the verge of begging when he drops to his knees. A soft yelp leaves her lips as he tossed her legs over his shoulders, sending her tumbling onto her back.

"I did not eat today, and you taste so sweet." Oscar chuckles into the flesh of her inner thigh, thinking of Axel's impromptu punishment to deprive him of breakfast. It seemed this was the universe's way of making it up to him.

She didn't miss the devious glint in his eyes as he lowered his mouth and began to lick her entrance with slow, deliberate strokes of his tongue. Whimpers and moans were suppressed by her own hand, her eyes screwed shut in ecstasy as she hoped her noises wouldn't be heard throughout the house. 

This was _certainly_ different than the previous night, not that she was complaining... 

It was just a new side to his eagerness, the rough handling of his fingers digging into her legs to hold them apart while his tongue took turns flicked over her pleasure point and roughly thrusting into her soft folds. It wasn't long until the pressure hit her like a wave, her back arching while broken fragments of his name fell from her mouth.

Oscar only gripped tighter, continuing to grind his face while she rode her high, sucking and licking until her body melted into a dazed sprawl.

He carefully hooked his hands underneath her legs, guiding them down from his shoulders so he could stand up fully. He wiped his chin and mouth, satisfaction brimming in his chest at seeing her in such a state. 

"Ready now?"

 _Ready?_ Her mind has little idea of how to respond to such a question. But the way her legs part farther apart all by themselves, as if begging for more, was enough for him to undo his trousers. 

They both groan as he breeches her entrance, the wetness from her lingering orgasm and his own saliva allowing him to bury himself without any problem this time. 

" _Vacker_. I like to watch you, to touch you, to hear you." He groaned in her ear, taking his time in finding the words in English.

His fingers come to interlace with hers, pinning her hands on either side of her head. He anchored her in place as his thrusts became more forceful, her entire frame shaking as he snapped his hips against her own. Small droplets of water fell from the dips of his muscles as he kept a steady pace, his wet hair freeing itself from behind his ear and dangling freely with each thrust. 

"Yesyesyes, please don't stop-" She never thought she was a multiple orgasm type of woman, but the sensation of his cock sliding in and out of her already sensitive walls was easily sending her over the edge again. She clenched around his length, hips jerking upwards in an attempt to match his rhythm. 

He responded with a shuddered groan, pulling back to look at her with a slack jawed expression. But his eyes quickly darken, like a man on a mission. He moved her hands together, pinning her wrists down above her head with one hand while the other came to hold her chin.

"If a different man touches you like this, I will cut his hands off." He sneered with conviction, clear gleaming eyes boring into her before claiming her lips. She openly moaned as his tongue forced her mouth open, tongues swirling in messy tandem. 

"If one looks at you when you make this face, I will cut out his eyes." He dipped down to her neck, kissing what he knew to be the unmarred side. She panted helplessly as his hand lowered to her chest, rubbing his thumb across her hardened nipple.

"If he hears the noises you make, I will remove his head from his neck." He growls darkly, hand now descending to rub her already-sensitive clit harshly.

"Y-your brothers are going to hear-" She whispered weakly. Her hands strained to be free of his grasp, but he only applied more pressure and forced her deeper into the mattress.

"They are the same."

"What?" Her mind was so focused on reaching her next release, she hardly understood his possessive words.

"We want to share you." Oscar eyes widen just a fraction as she tightens around his cock, her body portraying her true nature... Her mind now placing Otto's large hands holding her down, Axel's fingers sliding into her mouth to keep her quiet... "Oh? I think you would let me fuck you, even if they are watching."

"I,.. I- Oscar, fuck." She was close to sobbing with the built-up pressure of suppressing her moans, and the absolute filth that he was whispering was enough to push her towards a second orgasm. She writhed in his arms as it came crashing down on her, his relentless pace amplifying her pleasure. It wasn't long before Oscar's body tensed above her, the grip he had on her wrists tightening as delicious warmth flooded her passage.

When he finally pulls out and collapses onto her with a low, sated groan. Her arms come to reach around him and stroke his back, pressing soft kisses into the column of his neck. The quivers of her own orgasm were still there, but receding quickly as she held his heavy chilled body close.

* * *

"You should make your hair to be neat, before my brothers return." His deep voice was muffled by the pillow he was pressed into, and she gave a hum of acknowledgement. He was probably right-- the displaced bobby pins were pressing into the back of her head and she felt a lack of the usual tension from her updo.

"I'll just wear it down." She muttered lazily, until the full implications of his words set in. Primrose tried to jostle him off of her but he continued to ragdoll his weight. "They're not _here_ ?"

"They are food shopping." He sounds far too pleased with himself, shifting his head to the side to press his lips to her temple. "Did I forget to say?"

"You little shit-" A high pitched laugh reverberates in his chest when she finally gives up trying to push him off, instead opting to smack him sharply in the back of the head. "Don't tease me like that." 

"You liked." He gloated.

"Saying things like you're going to share me. It's indecent." She breathed in her guilt, leaning back deeper into the pillow. The secret desire to be with each of them exposed like a raw nerve. One that Oscar had teased for a bit of fun.

_She felt guilty a lot_.

"It is the truth." He props himself up on his arms, pouting slightly as he looks down at her. "You say you like us. We like you."

If it weren't for the vulnerable look on his face, she would struggle more to believe him. His eyes were desperate, silently begging a response, acceptance... _something._

"Why?"

There were so many ways that question could have ended, but... why _her_? Oscar closed his eyes and let out a deep, heavy sigh. His Adam's apple bobbed noticeably as he chewed and swallowed unspoken words.

"No reason." He finally answered, a teasing smile tugging at his lips as he lowered down to kiss her forehead. His hand shifted downward and squeezed one of her breasts. "Maybe one reason"

"Those aren't big enough to be the only reason." She clicked her tongue and grabbed his wrist, redirecting it to rest on her hip instead. Primrose knew there was still something there... something dark and dangerous that pricked at the back of her mind, a low hum of doubt. 

She had done this to herself, thinking she could simply dip her toes in. Each kiss was a ripple, each each heavy-handed brush of his thumbs across her skin a crashing wave. But there was a peaceful solace in drowning, embracing the pull of the sea. 

" _Ja älskar dig_."

She loved the way they made her feel. And for now, that was enough.

"I still can't believe it..." Primrose grumbled from the couch, staring daggers at the grey stripped cat that had made itself comfortable in Axel's lap. Just a few hours ago the wild feline had lunged at her, claws bared, just for putting her arm too close while filling the water bowl. 

There was a shift of air in the house after they had returned with groceries, Axel's gaze openly fixing far too long on her freshly bitten neck during dinner. She didn't dare breach the topic of Oscar's pillow talk with them, not _yet_ at least. 

Now that they were a full house again, she felt the need to do a small inventory. She mouthed their names silently as she counted them at their various positions around the living room. Oscar looked around at the cats, and back to Primrose, his face paled in horrified understanding.

"Are... are the words numbers?"

"Yeah?" She replied casually, repeating her process by pointing to each cat in the order that they had darkened her backyard. " _Yi, Er, San, Si, Wu, Liu, Qi, Ba --_ One through eight."

"Numbers are not names!" Oscar insisted, squaring his shoulders back to sit up straighter.

"Well I don't know what their names are!" She defended, looking to Axel in the armchair and Otto sat at the table for some support, but they too frowned in disapproval.

It was obvious that the purebred creatures had once been the pride and joy of the previous homeowner, a casualty of a different Commission agent's mission. How long it had been since their owner died, when they escaped the house, or why they bothered to come back were all a mystery to her. They weren't always strays, and they certainly didn't choose to be. 

Naming them gave them a sense of permeance, like ownership-

"Huā." Her head instinctively turned to Oscar. He had been watching for her reaction before his smile grew just a fraction wider. "Is that... _your_ name?"

"Kind of." Primrose shrugged, hiding her surprise that he had picked that up from the few times he had heard it. "Huā was my mother's name, so people used to call me Xiǎohuā -- smaller Huā."

But she was older now, and was free to call herself what she liked. 

"What's wrong with just referring to them as 'the cats'?"

"You do not call us 'the Swedes'." Otto countered, a serious and distant look in his eye... as if that particular point had been on his mind far before this discussion. 

"I refused to take part in an argument where I'm losing." She waved her hand dismissively before turning the volume of the television louder and settling deeper into the couch cushions. 

"Boots." Oscar declared after a long moment of silence, holding the cat up and peering into it's face. Primrose looked over at him, the contrasting sources of light from the fireplace and the halogen television making him all the more ethereal. She could tell where he got the idea, from the grey fur that turned to white on only its paws and as a blotch on its face. 

"We look alike, no?" Oscar cooed, holding _~~Wu~~_ Boots next to his face. The cat's glassy eyes furrowed in disapproval of the handling... but even she was lax in the assassin's arms.

"Yes..." She nodded in agreement. "Feral."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies! As always a huge thank you to every one who leaves kudos/reviews, they really help me stay motivated.
> 
> That being said, I'm going to take a quick break until beginning of March so I can focus on school. Feel free to pop by my tumblr @the-swedes-knees in the meantime to chat!


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